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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2008  witii  funding  from 

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littp://www.arcli  ive.org/details/bookofenglisliessOOwinc 


Charles   Lamb 


A  BOOK  OF 
ENGLISH   ESSAYS 


SELECTED  AND  EDITED  BY 

C.  T.  WINCHESTER 

PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  IN 
WESLEYAN   UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1914 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
February,  ig2S 


PRINTED  IN  THE  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

The  figures  in  the  second  column  indicate  the  pages  of  the  Biographical 

Sketches  and  Notes.  „ 

Page       Page 

The  Essay vii 

Francis  Bacon 295 

Of  Riches i 

Of  Studies      4 

Of  Atheism 6 

Abraham  Cowley 300 

Of  Solitude 10 

Of  Myself 16 

Sir  Richard  Steele  and  Joseph  Addison 306 

Recollections  of  Childhood 26 

A  Visit  to  a  Friend 3° 

Mr.  Bickerstaff's  Three  Nephews      36 

Ned  Softly 40 

Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  at  Westminster  Abbey     .        44 
Reflections  in  Westminster  Abbey 48 

Charles  Lamb 317 

A  Quakers'  Meeting 53 

A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig 59 

Dream  Children 68 

William  Hazlitt 325 

My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets  ......        73 

On  Going  a  Journey 97 

On  Reading  Old  Books no 

Thomas  De  Quincey 345 

Meeting  with  Coleridge       125 

Meeting  with  Wordsworth 156 

Levana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow 184 

V 


vi  Contents 

Page       Page 

William  Makepeace  Thackeray 362 

/       Nil  Nisi  Bonum 193 

V         De  Finibus 203 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 37^ 

Manners 215 

James  Russell  Lowell 382 

On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners  ...      241 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 395 

El  Dorado 271 

Walking  Tours      274 

^s  Triplex 283 

Portrait  of  Charles  Lamb Frontispiece 


THE  ESSAY 

The  Essay,  as  a  distinct  literary  form,  may  be  defined 
as  a  prose  composition  of  moderate  length,  dealing  with 
one  subject,  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  free  expression 
to  the  personality  of  the  writer.  The  term  has,  indeed,  y 
been  loosely  applied  to  a  wide  variety  of  prose  works,  / 
such  as  the  philosophical  treatise,  the  historical  or  bio- 
graphical monograph,  and  the  brief  anonymous  article 
of  the  newspaper.  But  the  essay,  in  the  stricter  sense 
in  which  the  word  is  employed  in  this  volume,  is  always 
personal,  always  in  some  degree  autobiographical.  The 
essayist  is,  in  some  special  sense,  writing  of  himself. 
The  essay  thus,  in  this  respect,  corresponds  in  prose  with 
the  lyric  in  verse. 

The  essay  as  thus  defined  did  not  originate  in  England. 
The  form  and  the  name  were  both  invented  by  that  most 
entertaining  French  egoist,  Michael  de  Montaigne. 
Montaigne's  Essais,  of  which  the  first  two  volumes  were 
published  in  1580  and  the  third  in  1588,  are  the  first 
specimens  of  this  kind  of  composition  in  European 
literature,  and  they  have  been  models  of  the  essay  ever 
since.  They  are  the  frank  comment  of  a  shrewd,  half- 
stoical  man  upon  the  varied  circumstances  and  experi- 
ences of  life.  Easy,  sometimes  almost  garrulous  in 
manner,  they  are  collected  into  books  without  any  dis- 
coverable principle  of  arrangement;  it  is  not  improbable 
that  they  may  have  grown  out  of  such  detached  obser- 
vations and  memoranda  as  a  reflective  man  might  write 

vii 


viii  The  Essay 

down  to  please  himself  in  a  commofi-place  book.  Some- 
times the  subject  is  a  personal  quality  or  habit,  as  "Idle- 
ness" or  "Envy";  sometimes  it  is  a  principle  of  morals 
or  society,  as  "That  our  Actions  are  judged  by  our 
Intentions";  sometimes  it  is  merely  trivial  or  humorous, 
as  "On  Smells,"  "On  Thumbs."     It  makes  Httle  dififer- 

ence   what  is  the  subject Montaigne  can  write 

charmingly  about  his  dog  or  his  cat;  in  any  case,  it  is 
the  shrewd,  racy  personality  of  the  man,  humorist, 
philosopher,  skeptic,  that  interests  us.  As  he  said  truly 
in  a  prefatory  note,  "It  is  myself  that  I  portray." 

Montaigne's  Essays  were  immediately  admired  and 
imitated  in  England.  In  1597,  only  five  years  after  the 
death  of  Montaigne,  Francis  Bacon  gave  to  his  first  thin 
volume  of  English  papers  the  title  "Essays."  This  is 
the  first  known  use  of  the  word  in  EngUsh,  and  was  un- 
doubtedly borrowed  from  Montaigne.  Six  years  later, 
in  1603,  appeared  the  first  English  translation  of  the 
Essais,  by  that  eccentric  Elizabethan  scholar  and  dic- 
tionary-maker, John  Florio.  The  popularity  of  the  trans- 
lation is  attested  by  the  fact  that  other  editions  were 
called  for  in  16 13  and  1632.  This  is  the  translation 
through  which  Montaigne  became  known  in  English 
to  the  men  of  Shakespeare's  generation.  For  fifty  years 
probably  no  French  book  was  more  familiar  or  more 
widely  read  in  England,  or  had  more  influence  upon  the 
development  of  English  prose.  Florio's  translation  is 
not  always  accurate;  but  in  spirit  and  vivacity  it  has 
never  been  surpassed,  and  it  is  still  probably  the  best 
version  for  the  general  reader. 

Bacon's  Essays  have  too  little  ease  and  fluency  to  be 
good  examples  of  the  Montaigne  type.  They  are  over 
sententious,  packed  too  full  of  thought,  and  have  little 
of  Montaigne's  leisurely  and  familiar  manner.     Yet  on 


The  Essay  ix 

that  very  account  they  are  all  the  more  faithful  expres- 
sions of  the  mind  of  Bacon,  who  was  deficient  in  the 
more  genial  forms  of  emotion,  and  saw  all  things  in  the 
cold,  dry  light  of  the  intellect.  The  Essays  certainly 
bear  traces  in  every  line  of  the  personality  of  their 
author. 

Much  of  the  writing  of  those  delightful  early  sev- 
enteenth century  men,  Thomas  Fuller,  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  Isaac  Walton,  is  of  the  familiar  personal  sort 
well  fitted  for  the  essay.  Excellent  essays,  one  thinks, 
could  be  shaped  out  of  their  books;  but  they  did  not  adopt 
the  essay  form.  It  is  in  the  prose  of  Abraham  Cowley 
that  we  first  see  in  English,  essays  precisely  after  the 
model  of  Montaigne's.  His  Discourses  by  Way  of  Essays 
were  written  late  in  his  life,  and  printed  in  1668,  the  year 
after  his  death.  In  unity  of  subject  combined  with  ease 
and  lucidity  of  style,  in  felicity  of  illustration  and  ex- 
ample, and  in  their  tone  of  complacent  personal  revela- 
aon,  Cowley's  essays  are  almost  equal  to  Montaigne's. 
Indeed,  such  papers  as  those  Of  Myself  and  Of  Solitude 
one  could  imagine  written  by  Montaigne  himself. 

Before  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  term 
essay  came  to  be  applied  sometimes  to  treatises  philo- 
sophical like  Locke's  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding, 
or  critical  like  Dryden's  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  or 
religious  like  Clarendon's  Reflections  upon  Christian 
Doctrine  by  Way  of  Essays;  but  there  is  only  one  other 
writer  of  any  eminence  in  the  century  whose  work  was 
cast  in  the  strict  form  of  the  essay.  Sir  William  Temple 
had  been  prominent  in  English  politics  and  diplomacy 
before  the  Revolution  of  1688;  but  he  retired  early  from 
public  life  and  spent  his  later  years  as  a  superannuated 
statesman,  in  learned  and  elegant  leisure,  playing  at 
Greek   and   gardening   on    his   estate   at   Moor   Park. 


X  The  Essay 

Temple  is  principally  remembered  as  the  patron  of  Swift 
and  a  party  in  the  quarrel  out  of  which  grew  Swift's 
Battle  of  the  Books;  but  in  the  years  of  his  retirement  he 
wrote  a  number  of  pleasing  papers  that  in  subject  and 
manner  are  genuine  essays.  The  best  of  these  are  those 
entitled  Of  Gardens,  Of  Poetry,  and  Of  Health  and  Long 
Life.  Temple's  writing  has  a  kind  of  dignified  ease, 
reflecting  a  courtly,  self-satisfied  personality;  but  the 
reader  of  to-day  is  likely  to  find  his  reflections  a  little 
superficial  and  his  manner  a  little  pompous.  The  limits 
of  this  volume  do  not  allow  any  selections  from  his  work. 

Both  Cowley  and  Temple  mention  Montaigne  with 
admiration;  both  show  unmistakably  his  influence  in 
the  general  form  of  their  essays;  and  both,  in  some  in- 
stances, have  borrowed  from  him  titles  and  subject 
matter.  The  Essais  continued  to  be  popular  in  England 
throughout  the  century.  In  1685  an  entirely  new  trans- 
lation of  them  was  made  by  Charles  Cotton,  which  is 
somewhat  more  accurate  than  Florio's  and  more  tem- 
perate in  style.  Through  all  the  centuries,  indeed, 
many  of  the  masters  of  English  prose,  Dryden,  Addison, 
Hazlitt,  Lamb,  Thackeray,  Emerson,  Lowell,  Stevenson 
have  borne  emphatic  testimony  to  the  wisdom  and  the 
charm  of  the  father  of  the  essay. 

After  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
essay  received  considerable  modification  at  the  hands  of 
Steele  and  Addison.  The  paper  of  the  Tatler  and  Spec- 
tator is  quite  a  different  thing  from  the  essay  of  Cowley 
I  or  Temple.  The  familiar  personal  quality  of  the  older 
essay,  indeed,  is  retained  and  increased.  It  is  Mr. 
Bickerstaff  or  Mr.  Spectator  who  is  talking  with  us; 
and  certainly  no  writers  ever  revealed  themselves  more 
frankly  than  they,  or  put  themselves  into  more  cordial 
relations  with   their  readers.     But  in   their   treatment 


The  Essay  xi 

the  older  essay  was  made  simpler  in  structure  and  was 
very  much  shortened.  A  daily  essay,  to  be  read  in  the 
coffee-house,  must  of  necessity  be  brief.  Furthermore, 
the  tone  of  this  essay  was  different  in  some  respects  from 
that  of  the  older.  In  the  Queen  Anne  age,  literature, 
like  philosophy,  descended  into  the  street.  The  readers 
of  the  Taller  and  Spectator  were  not  interested  in  the 
meditations  of  the  study,  but  in  the  conversation  of  the 
club  and  the  drawing-room.  The  periodical  literature 
of  such  an  age  must  reflect  the  charm  of  manners  and 
society;  it  may  be  wise,  but  it  cannot  be  abstract  or  pro- 
found; it  must  be  witty  and  urbane.  If  it  touch  upon 
serious  matters,  it  must  do  so  with  brevity  and  grace. 
It  is  the  special  praise  of  Steele  and  Addison  that  they 
perfected  a  form  of  the  essay  exactly  satisfying  these 
conditions.  Addison,  in  particular,  perceived  that  it 
was  possible  to  give  to  writing  colloquial  in  manner  and 
familiar  even  to  commonplace  in  subject,  an  exquisite 
literary  form  and  finish.  The  Spectator  papers  were 
accounted  for  nearly  a  century,  correct  models  of  the 
essay  form.  A  multitude  of  periodicals  in  imitation  of  the 
Spectator  were  set  up  during  the  course  of  the  century — 
nearly  two  hundred  in  all — but  most  of  them  were  very 
short  lived.  A  few  papers  of  pleasing  humor  by  Gold- 
smith and  of  sound  sense  by  Johnson  may  be  found  in 
these  volumes  now  mostly  forgotten  or  lost;  but  nobody 
ever  succeeded  in  writing  the  Addisonian  essay  with 
the  charm  of  Addison. 

At  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  further 
change  in  the  form  of  the  essay  brought  it  back  more 
nearly  to  the  original  type.  The  two  great  English 
reviews,  the  Edinburgh  founded  in  1802,  and  the  Quar- 
terly in  1807,  must  be  credited  with  introducing  a  new 
variety   of  prose — -the   extended   discussion,   in   careful 


xii  The  Essay 

literary  manner,  of  topics  of  current  interest,  literary, 
philosophical,  and  especially  poUtical.  But  the  articles 
in  these  reviews  are  hardly  to  be  called  essays.  They 
are  impersonal  and  objective  in  subject,  expressly  avoid- 
ing individual  quality,  and  quite  properly,  therefore, 
always  anonymous.  They  are,  moreover,  critical  in 
plan,  and  take  the  shape  of  a  review  of  some  book  or 
books.  And  it  must  be  said  that,  dealing  in  this  imper- 
sonal manner  with  questions  of  the  hour,  they  are  seldom 
of  permanent  hterary  interest.  It  is  in  another  kind  of 
periodical,  the  Magazine,  that  we  shall  iind  the  essay  in 
its  developed,  modern  form.  There  had  been  several 
''magazines"  in  the  eighteenth  century;  but  they  had 
been  for  the  most  part,  as  their  name  was  meant  to  imply, 
mere  receptacles  for  fugitive  facts  supposed  to  be  valu- 
able or  curious,  literary  dust-bins.  But  early  in  the  new 
century  several  magazines  were  started  of  a  very  different 
character  from  their  predecessors  of  that  name.  The 
New  Monthly  Magazine,  1810,  the  more  famous  Black- 
wood, 1817,  and  the  London  Magazine,  1821,  aimed  to 
maintain  the  high  standard  of  periodical  writing  set  by 
the  Reviews,  but  to  include  a  wider  range  of  subjects 
treated  in  a  more  popular  and  entertaining  manner. 
They  welcomed  writing  that  was  original  and  imaginative, 
and  encouraged  every  pronounced  expression  of  person- 
ality. Under  the  stimulus  of  such  an  opportunity  the 
latest  and  best  form  of  the  essay  was  speedily  developed. 
It  was  for  these  magazines  and  one  other — Taifs  Edin- 
burgh Magazine — that  most  of  the  best  work  of  Hazlitt, 
Lamb  and  DeQuincey  was  done.  Indeed  it  has  been  in 
the  pages  of  the  magazine,  English  and  American,  that 
the  essay  for  the  last  hundred  years  has  found  its  most 
congenial  place  of  publication. 

No  other  literary  form  affords  opportunity  for  a  greater 


The  Essay  xiii 

variety  of  excellence  than  the  personal  essay.  It  is 
not  fitted  to  express  the  most  intense  emotion,  pathetic 
or  sublime;  such  emotion  is  too  reticent  for  familiar  or 
colloquial  utterance.  But  with  this  exception  the  whole 
range  of  experience  is  open  to  the  essayist.  The  only 
requirement  upon  him  is  that  he  shall  be  sincere.  Any 
suspicion  of  affectation  or  pretence  alienates  our  sym- 
pathies at  once.  His  rhetorical  manner,  if  he  be  sincere, 
will  be  decided  by  his  temperament.  We  may  find, 
therefore,  all  varieties  of  style  in  the  work  of  different 
essayists.  There  could  hardly  be  greater  diversity  in 
vocabulary,  structure,  imagery,  rhythm,  and  general 
tone  of  utterance  than  may  be  seen,  for  example,  by  a 
comparison  of  the  writing  of  Lamb,  DeQuincey,  Hazlitt, 
Emerson,  and  Stevenson,  each  in  his  own  way  a  master. 

Ease  and  familiarity  are,  however,  almost  always 
virtues  of  the  personal  essay.  The  essayist  must  not 
talk  too  much  like  a  book.  Yet  his  ease  must  not  for 
a  moment  degenerate  into  slackness,  nor  his  familiarity 
into  coarseness  or  vulgarity.  He  must  know  how  to 
combine  with  his  ease,  precision  of  phrase  and  a  certain 
distinction  of  manner.  Nothing  is  more  difficult  in 
writing  than  this  combination;  it  is  a  hall-mark  of  good 
style.  And  nowhere  is  it  more  imperative  than  in  the 
essay. 

The  essay  must,  of  course,  have  some  unity  of  theme, 
but  its  plan  need  not  be  rigidly  methodical.  The  essay- 
ist often  writes  as  the  good  talker  talks,  in  a  flowing, 
continuous  manner.  He  does  not  always  see  the  end 
clearly  from  the  beginning.  He  allows  himself  some 
natural  digressions,  without  ever  losing  his  way  in  them. 
He  follows  his  thought  or  his  narrative  as  that  spontane- 
ously develops,  and  the  plan  of  his  essay  thus  seems  to 
shape  itself  while  he  is  writing.     But  at  the  end  he  will 


xiv  The  Essay 

be  found  to  have  had  a  plan,  and  his  essay  will  be  neither 
formless  nor  incoherent. 

Finally,  it  should  be  said  that  no  other  literary  form 
affords  a  better  test  of  genius  than  the  personal  essay. 
None  reveals  more  surely  whatever  in  the  character 
of  the  writer  is  forcible  or  original;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
more  readily  betrays  him  into  amiable  platitude  and 
egotism.  Mediocre  work  in  the  essay,  although  it  may 
perhaps  be  pleasant  reading,  rarely  survives  beyond  a 
single  generation.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that 
\y  the  list  of  English  writers  who  have  attained  permanent 
fame  in  this  form  of  work  should  be  very  short. 


ENGLISH    ESSAYS 
FRANCIS  BACON 

OF  RICHES 

I  CANNOT  call  riches  better  than  the  baggage  of  vir- 
tue. The  Roman  word  is  better,  impedimenta.  For 
as  the  baggage  is  to  an  army,  so  is  riches  to  virtue.  It 
cannot  be  spared  nor  left  behind,  but  it  hindreth  the 
march;  yea,  and  the  care  of  it  sometimes  loseth  or  disturb-  5 
eth  the  victory.  Of  great  riches  there  is  no  real  use, 
except  it  be  in  the  distribution;  the  rest  is  but  conceit. 
So  saith  Salomon:  Where  much  is,  there  are  many  to  con- 
sume it;  and  what  hath  the  owner  but  the  sight  oj  it  with  his 
eyes?  The  personal  fruition  in  any  man  cannot  reach  10 
to  feel  great  riches:  there  is  a  custody  of  them;  or  a 
power  of  dole  and  donative  of  them;  or  a  fame  of  them; 
but  no  solid  use  to  the  owner.  Do  you  not  see  what 
feigned  prices  are  set  upon  little  stones  and  rarities?  and 
what  works  of  ostentation  are  undertaken,  because  there  15 
might  seem  to  be  some  use  of  great  riches?  But  then 
you  will  say,  they  may  be  of  use  to  buy  men  out  of 
dangers  or  trouble.  As  Salomon  saith:  Riches  are  as  a 
strong  hold,  in  the  imagination  of  the  rich  man.  But  this 
is  excellently  expressed,  that  it  is  in  imagination,  and  20 
not  always  in  fact.  For  certainly  great  riches  have  sold 
more  men  than  they  have  brought  out.  Seek  not  proud 
riches,  but  such  as  thou  mayest  get  justly,  use  soberly, 


2  Francis  Bacon 

distribute  cheerfully,  and  leave  contentedly.  Yet  have 
no  abstract  nor  friar ly  contempt  of  them.  But  distin- 
guish, as  Cicero  saith  well  of  Rabirius  Posthumus:  In 
studio  rei  amplificandcB  apparehat  non  avaritia  prcedam 
5  sed  instrumentmn  honUati  quceri.  Hearken  also  to 
Salomon,  and  beware  of  hasty  gathering  of  riches:  Qui 
Jestinat  ad  diviiias  non  erit  insons.  The  poets  feign  that 
when  Plutus  (which  is  Riches)  is  sent  from  Jupiter,  he 
limps  and  goes  slowly;  but  when  he  is  sent  from  Pluto, 

lo  he  runs  and  is  swift  of  foot:  meaning,  that  riches  gotten 
by  good  means  and  just  labor  pace  slowly;  but  when 
they  come  by  the  death  of  others  (as  by  the  course 
of  inheritance,  testaments,  and  the  like),  they  come 
tumbling  upon  a  man.     But  it  might  be   applied  like- 

15  wise  to  Pluto,  taking  him  for  the  devil.  For  when  riches 
come  from  the  devil  (as  by  fraud  and  oppression  and 
unjust  means),  they  come  upon  speed.  The  ways  to 
enrich  are  many,  and  most  of  them  foul.  Parsimony  is 
one  of   the  best,  and  yet  is  not  innocent;  for  it  with- 

20  holdeth  men  from  works  of  liberality  and  charity.  The 
improvement  of  the  ground  is  the  most  natural  obtaining 
of  riches;  for  it  is  our  great  mother's  blessing,  the 
earth's;  but  it  is  slow.  And  yet,  where  men  of  great 
wealth    do   stoop    to   husbandry,    it   multiplieth    riches 

25  exceedingly.  I  knew  a  nobleman  in  England  that  had 
the  greatest  audits  of  any  man  in  my  time:  a  great 
grazier,  a  great  sheep-master,  a  great  timber  man,  a  great 
collier,  a  great  corn-master,  a  great  lead-man,  and  so  of 
iron,  and  a  number  of  the  like  points  of  husbandry:  so 

30  as  the  earth  seemed  a  sea  to  him,  in  respect  of  the 
perpetual  importation.  It  was  truly  observed  by  one, 
that  himself  came  very  hardly  to  a  little  riches,  and  very 
easily  to  great  riches.  For  when  a  man's  stock  is  come 
to  that,  that  he  can  expect  the  prime  of  markets,  and 


Of  Riches  3 

overcome  those  bargains  which  for  their  greatness  are 
few  men's  money,  and  be  partner  in  the  industries  of 
younger  men,  he  cannot  but  increase  mainly.  The  gains 
of  ordinary  trades  and  vocations  are  honest,  and  furthered 
by  two  things  chiefly:  by  diligence,  and  by  a  good  name  5 
for  good  and  fair  deahng.  But  the  gains  of  bargains  are 
of  a  more  doubtful  nature;  when  men  shall  wait  upon 
others'  necessity,  broke  by  servants  and  instruments  to 
draw  them  on,  put  off  others  cunningly  that  would  be 
better  chapmen,  and  the  like  practices,  which  are  crafty  10 
and  naught.  As  for  the  chopping  of  bargains,  when  a 
man  buys,  not  to  hold,  but  to  sell  over  again,  that  com- 
monly grindeth  double,  both  upon  the  seller  and  upon 
the  buyer.  Sharings  do  greatly  enrich,  if  the  hands  be 
well  chosen  that  are  trusted.  Usury  is  the  certainest  15 
means  of  gain,  though  one  of  the  worst;  as  that  whereby 
a  man  doth  eat  his  bread  in  sudore  vulkts  alieni,  and 
besides,  doth  plow  upon  Sundays.  But  yet,  certain 
though  it  be,  it  hath  flaws;  for  that  the  scriveners  and 
brokers  do  value  unsound  men,  to  serve  their  own  turn.  20 
The  fortune  in  being  the  first  in  an  invention,  or  in  a 
privilege,  doth  cause  sometimes  a  wonderful  overgrowth 
in  riches;  as  it  was  with  the  first  sugar  man  in  the 
Canaries:  therefore  if  a  man  can  play  the  true  logician, 
to  have  as  well  judgment  as  invention,  he  may  do  great  25 
matters;  especially  if  the  times  be  fit.  He  that  resteth 
upon  gains  certain,  shall  hardly  grow  to  great  riches: 
and  he  that  puts  all  upon  adventures,  doth  oftentimes 
break  and  come  to  poverty :  it  is  good  therefore  to  guard 
adventures  with  certainties  that  may  uphold  losses.  30 
Monopolies,  and  coemption  of  wares  for  re-sale,  where 
they  are  not  restrained,  are  great  means  to  enrich; 
especially  if  the  party  have  intelligence  what  things  are 
like  to  come  into  request,  and  so  store  himself  before- 


4  Francis  Bacon 

hand.  Riches  gotten  by  service,  though  it  be  of  the 
best  rise,  yet  when  they  are  gotten  by  flattery,  feeding 
humors,  and  other  servile  conditions,  they  may  be 
placed  amongst  the  worst.  As  for  fishing  for  testaments 
5  and  executorships  (as  Tacitus  saith  of  Seneca,  testamenta 
et  orbos  tanquam  indaghie  capi)  it  is  yet  worse;  by  how 
much  men  submit  themselves  to  meaner  persons  than 
in  service.  Believe  not  much  them  that  seem  to  despise 
riches;  for  they  despise  them  that  despair  of  them;  and 

lo  none  worse,  when  they  come  to  them.  Be  not  penny- 
wise;  riches  have  wings,  and  sometimes  they  fly  away 
of  themselves,  sometimes  they  must  be  set  flying  to 
bring  in  more.  Men  leave  their  riches  either  to  their 
kindred,  or  to  the  public;  and  moderate  portions  pros- 

15  per  best  in  both.  A  great  state  left  to  an  heir,  is  as 
a  lure  to  all  the  birds  of  prey  round  about  to  seize  on 
him,  if  he  be  not  the  better  stablished  in  years  and  judg- 
ment. Likewise  glorious  gifts  and  foundations  are  like 
sacrifices  without  salt;  and  but  the  painted    sepulchers 

20  of  alms,  which  soon  will  putrefy  and  corrupt  inwardly. 
Therefore  measure  not  thine  advancements  by  quantity, 
but  frame  them  by  measure:  and  defer  not  charities  till 
death;  for  certainly,  if  a  man  weigh  it  rightly,  he  that 
doth  so  is  rather  liberal  of  another  man's  than  of  his  own. 

OF  STUDIES 

25  Studies  serve  for  delight.,  for  ornament,  and  for 
ability.  Their  chief  use  for  delight  is  in  privateness 
and  retiring;  for  ornament,  is  in  discourse;  and  for 
ability,  is  in  the  judgment  and  disposition  of  business. 
For   expert    men    can    execute,    and   perhaps   judge   of 

30  particulars,  one  by  one;  but  the  general  counsels,  and 
the   plots    and  marshaling  of   affairs,  come  best  from 


Of  Studies  "  5 

those  that  are  learned.  To  spend  too  much  time  in 
studies  is  sloth;  to  use  them  too  much  for  ornament 
is  affectation;  to  make  judgment  wholly  by  their  rules 
is  the  humor  of  a  scholar.  They  perfect  nature,  and 
are  perfected  by  experience;  for  natural  abilities  are  5 
like  natural  plants,  that  need  proyning  by  study;  and 
studies  themselves  do  give  forth  directions  too  much 
at  large,  except  they  be  bounded  in  by  experience. 
Crafty  men  contemn  studies;  simple  men  admire  them; 
and  wise  men  use  them:  for  they  teach  not  their  own  10 
use;  but  that  is  a  wisdom  without  them  and  above  them, 
won  by  observation.  Read  not  to  contradict  and  con- 
fute; nor  to  believe  and  take  for  granted;  nor  to  find 
talk  and  discourse;  but  to  weigh  and  consider.  Some 
books  are  to  be  tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed,  and  15 
some  few  to  be  chewed  and  digested:  that  is,  some  books 
are  to  be  read  only  in  parts;  others  to  be  read,  but  not 
curiously;  and  some  few  to  be  read  wholly,  and  with 
diligence  and  attention.  Some  books  also  may  be  read 
by  deputy,  and  extracts  made  of  them  by  others;  but  20 
that  would  be  only  in  the  less  important  arguments, 
and  the  meaner  sort  of  books;  else  distilled  books  are 
like  common  distilled  waters,  flashy  things.  Reading 
maketh  a  full  man;  conference  a  ready  man;  and  writing 
an  exact  man.  And  therefore,  if  a  man  write  little,  25 
he  had  need  have  a  great  memory;  if  he  confer  little, 
he  had  need  have  a  present  wit;  and  if  he  read  little,  he 
had  need  have  much  cunning,  to  seem  to  know  that  he 
doth  not.  Histories  make  men  wise;  poets  witty;  the 
mathematics  subtle;  natural  philosophy  deep;  moral  30 
grave;  logic  and  rhetoric  able  to  contend.  Abeunt  studia 
in  mores.  Nay,  there  is  no  stond  or  impediment  in  the 
wit,  but  may  be  wrought  out  by  fit  studies:  like  as 
diseases  of  the  body  may  have  appropriate  exercises. 


6  '     Francis  Bacon 

Bowling  is  good  for  the  stone  and  reins;  shooting  for 
the  lungs  and  breast;  gentle  walking  for  the  stomach; 
riding  for  the  head;  and  the  like.  So  if  a  man's  wit 
be  wandering,  let  him  study  the  mathematics;  for  in 
5  demonstrations,  if  his  wit  be  called  away  never  so  little, 
he  must  begin  again:  if  his  wit  be  not  apt  to  distinguish 
or  find  differences,  let  him  study  the  schoolmen;  for 
they  are  cymini  sectores:  if  he  be  not  apt  to  beat  over 
matters,  and  to  call  one  thing  to  prove  and  illustrate 
lo  another,  let  him  study  the  lawyers'  cases:  so  every 
defect  of  the  mind  may  have  a  special  receipt. 

OF  ATHEISM 

I  HAD  rather  believe  all  the  fables  in  the  Legend  and 
the  Talmud  and  the  Alcoran,  than  that  this  universal 
frame  is  without  a  mind.     And  therefore   God  never 

15  wrought  miracle  to  convince  atheism,  because  his 
ordinary  works  convince  it.  It  is  true  that  a  little 
philosophy  inclineth  man's  mind  to  atheism;  but  depth 
in  philosophy  bringeth  men's  minds  about  to  religion: 
for  while  the  mind  of  man  looketh  upon  second  causes 

20  scattered,  it  may  sometimes  rest  in  them,  and  go  no 
further;  but  when  it  beholdeth  the  chain  of  them, 
confederate  and  linked  together,  it  must  needs  fly  to 
Providence  and  Deity.  Nay,  even  that  school  which  is 
most  accused  of  atheism  doth  most  demonstrate  religion; 

25  that  is,  the  school  of  Leucippus  and  Democritus  and 
Epicurus.  For  it  is  a  thousand  times  more  credible 
that  four  mutable  elements  and  one  immutable  fifth 
essence,  duly  and  eternally  placed,  need  no  God,  than 
that  an  army  of  infinite  small  portions  or  seeds  unplaced 

30  should  have  produced  this  order  and  beauty  without  a 
divine  marshal.     The  Scripture  saith,  The  fool  hath  said 


Of  Atheism  7 

in  his  heart,  there  is  no  God:  it  is  not  said,  The  fool  hath 
thought  in  his  heart:  so  as  he  rather  saith  it  by  rote  to 
himself,  as  that  he  would  have,  than  that  he  can 
throughly  believe  it,  or  be  persuaded  of  it.  For  none 
deny  there  is  a  God  but  those  for  whom  .it  maketh  that  5 
there  were  no  God.  It  appeareth  in  nothing  more,  that 
atheism  is  rather  in  the  lip  than  in  the  heart  of  man, 
than  by  this;  that  atheists  will  ever  be  talking  of  that 
their  opinion,  as  if  they  fainted  in  it  within  themselves, 
and  would  be  glad  to  be  strengthened  by  the  consent  10 
of  others:  nay  more,  you  shall  have  atheists  strive  to 
get  disciples,  as  it  fareth  with  other  sects:  and,  which 
is  most  of  all,  you  shall  have  of  them  that  will  suffer  for 
atheism,  and  not  recant;  whereas,  if  they  did  truly 
think  that  there  were  no  such  thing  as  God,  why  should  15 
they  trouble  themselves?  Epicurus  is  charged  that  he 
did  but  dissemble  for  his  credit's  sake,  when  he  afl&rmed 
there  were  blessed  natures,  but  such  as  enjoyed  them- 
selves without  having  respect  to  the  government  of  the 
world.  Wherein  they  say  he  did  temporize,  though  in  20 
secret  he  thought  there  was  no  God.  But  certainly  he 
is  traduced;  for  his  words  are  noble  and  divine:  Non 
deos  vidgi  negare  profamim,  sed  vulgi  opiniones  diis  appli- 
care  profanum.  Plato  could  have  said  no  more.  And 
although  he  had  the  confidence  to  deny  the  administra-  25 
tion,  he  had  not  the  power  to  deny  the  nature.  The 
Indians  of  the  West  have  names  for  their  particular 
gods,  though  they  have  no  name  for  God:  as  if  the 
heathens  should  have  had  the  names  Jupiter,  Apollo, 
Mars,  etc.,  but  not  the  w^ord  Dens:  which  shews  that  3° 
even  those  barbarous  people  have  the  notion,  though 
they  have  not  the  latitude  and  extent  of  it.  So  that 
against  atheists  the  very  savages  take  part  with  the  very 
subtlest    philosophers.     The    contemplative    atheist    is 


8  Francis  Bacon 

rare;  a  Diagoras,  a  Bion,  a  Lucian  perhaps,  and  some 
others;  and  yet  they  seem  to  be  more  than  they  are;  for 
that  all  that  impugn  a  received  religion,  or  superstition, 
are,  by  the  adverse  part,  branded  with  the  name  of 
5  atheists.  But  the  great  atheists  indeed  are  hypocrites; 
which  are  ever  handling  holy  things,  but  without  feeling; 
so  as  they  must  needs  be  cauterized  in  the  end.  The 
causes  of  atheism  are:  divisions  in  religion,  if  they  be 
many;  for  any  one  main  division  addeth  zeal  to  both 

lo  sides,  but  many  divisions  introduce  atheism.  Another 
is,  scandal  of  priests;  when  it  is  come  to  that  which  St. 
Bernard  saith:  Non  est  jam  dicere,  ut  populuSy  sic 
sacerdos;  quia  nee  sic  populus,  ut  sacerdos.  A  third  is, 
custom  of  profane  scoffing  in  holy  matters,  which  doth 

15  by  little  and  little  deface  the  reverence  of  religion.  And 
lastly,  learned  times,  specially  with  peace  and  prosperity; 
for  troubles  and  adversities  do  more  bow  men's  minds 
to  religion.  They  that  deny  a  God  destroy  man's 
nobility;  for  certainly  man  is  of  kin  to  the  beasts  by  his 

20  body;  and  if  he  be  not  of  kin  to  God  by  his  spirit,  he 
is  a  base  and  ignoble  creature.  It  destroys  likewise 
magnanimity,  and  the  raising  of  human  nature;  for  take 
an  example  of  a  dog,  and  mark  what  a  generosity  and 
courage  he  will  put  on  when  he  finds  himself  maintained 

25  by  a  man,  who  to  him  is  in  stead  of  a  god,  or  melior 
natura;  which  courage  is  manifestly  such  as  that 
creature,  without  that  confidence  of  a  better  nature  than 
his  own,  could  never  attain.  So  man,  when  he  resteth 
and  assureth  himself  upon  divine  protection  and  favor, 

30  gathereth  a  force  and  faith  which  human  nature  in  itself 
could  not  obtain.  Therefore,  as  atheism  is  in  all 
respects  hateful,  so  in  this,  that  it  depriv^eth  human 
nature  of  the  means  to  exalt  itself  above  human  frailty. 
As  it  is  in  particular  persons,  so  it  is  in  nations:  never 


Of  Atheism  9 

was  there  such  a  state  for  magnanimity  as  Rome:  of 
this  state  hear  what  Cicero  saith:  Quam  volumus  licet, 
patres  conscripti,  nos  ametnus,  tamen  nee  numero  Hispanos, 
ncc  robore  Gallos,  nee  calliditate  Poenos,  necartibus  Grcecos, 
nee  denique  hoc  ipso  hujus  gentis  et  terra  domestico  nativo- 
que  sensu  Italos  ipsos  et  Latinos;  scd  pietate,  ae  religione, 
atqiie  hdc  una  sapientid,  quod  Deorum  immortalium 
numine  omnia  regi  gubernariqne  perspeximus,  omnes 
gentes  nationesque  superavimus. 


ABRAHAM  COWLEY 

OF  SOLITUDE 

"NuNQUAM  minus  solus,  quam  cum  solus,"  is  now 
become  a  very  vulgar  saying.  Every  man,  and  almost 
every  boy,  for  these  seventeen  hundred  years,  has  had 
it  in  his  mouth.  But  it  was  at  first  spoken  by  the  excel- 
5  lent  Scipio,  who  was  without  question  a  most  eloquent 
and  witty  person,  as  well  as  the  most  wise,  most  worthy, 
most  happy,  and  the  greatest  of  all  mankind.  His 
meaning,  no  doubt,  was  this,  that  he  found  more  satisfac- 
tion to  his  mind,  and  more  improvement  of  it,  by  solitude 

lo  than  by  company;  and,  to  show  that  he  spoke  not  this 
loosely,  or  out  of  vanity,  after  he  had  made  Rome  mis- 
tress of  almost  the  whole  world,  he  retired  himself  from 
it  by  a  voluntary  exile,  and  at  a  private  house  in  the 
middle  of  a  wood  near  Linternum,  passed  the  remainder 

15  of  his  glorious  life  no  less  gloriously.  This  house  Seneca 
went  to  see  so  long  after  with  great  veneration;  and, 
among  other  things,  describes  his  baths  to  have  been  of 
so  mean  a  structure,  that  now,  says  he,  the  basest  of  the 
people  would  despise  them,  and  cry  out,  "Poor  Scipio 

20  understood  not  how  to  live."  What  an  authority  is  here 
for  the  credit  of  retreat!  and  happy  had  it  been  for 
Hannibal,  if  adversity  could  have  taught  him  as  much 
wisdom  as  was  learnt  by  Scipio  from  the  highest  pros- 

25  perities.  This  would  be  no  wonder,  if  it  were  as  truly 
as  it  is  colorably  and  wittily  said  by  Monsieur  de  Mon- 


Of  Solitude  II 

taigne,  "that  ambition  itself  might  teach  us  to  love 
solitude;  there  is  nothing  does  so  much  hate  to  have 
companions."  It  is  true,  it  loves  to  have  its  elbows  free, 
it  detests  to  have  company  on  either  side;  but  it  delights 
above  all  things  in  a  train  behind,  aye,  and  ushers  too  5 
before  it.  But  the  greatest  part  of  men  are  so  far  from 
the  opinion  of  that  noble  Roman,  that,  if  they  chance 
at  any  time  to  be  without  company,  they  are  like  a 
becalmed  ship;  they  never  move  but  by  the  wind  of 
other  men's  breath,  and  have  no  oars  of  their  own  to  10 
steer  withal.  It  is  very  fantastical  and  contradictory 
in  human  nature,  that  men  should  love  themselves 
above  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  yet  never  endure  to 
be  with  themselves.  When  they  are  in  love  with  a 
mistress,  all  other  persons  are  importunate  and  burden-  15 
some  to  them.  "Tecum  vivere  amem,  tecum  obeam 
lubens,"  they  would  live  and  die  with  her  alone. 

"Sic  ego  secretis  possum  bene  vivere  sylvis, 

Qua  nulla  humano  sit  via  trita  pede. 
Tu  mihi  curarum  requies,  tu  nocte  vel  atra  20 

Lumen,  et  in  solis  tu  mihi  turba  locis." 

With  thee  for  ever  I  in  woods  could  rest, 

Where  never  human  foot  the  ground  has  prest. 

Thou  from  all  shades  the  darkness  canst  exclude, 

And  from  a  desert  banish  solitude.  25 

And  yet  our  dear  self  is  so  wearisome  to  us,  that  we 
can  scarcely  support  its  conversation  for  an  hour  together. 
This  is  such  an  odd  temper  of  mind,  as  Catullus  expresses 
toward  one  of  his  mistresses,  whom  we  may  suppose 
.to  have  been  of  a  very  unsociable  humor.  30 

"Odi,  et  amo:  quare  id  faciam  fortasse  requiris. 
Nescio;  sed  fieri  sentio,  et  excrucior." 


12  Abraham  Cowley 

I  hate,  and  yet  I  love  thee  too; 
How  can  that  be?     I  know  not  how; 
Only  that  so  it  is  I  know, 
And  feel  with  torment  that  'tis  so. 

5  It  is  a  deplorable  condition,  this,  and  drives  a  man 
sometimes  to  pitiful  shifts,  in  seeking  how  to  avoid 
himself. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  neither  he  who  is  a 
fop  in  the  world,  is  a  fit  man  to  be  alone;  nor  he  who 

lo  has  set  his  heart  much  upon  the  world,  though  he  have 
never  so  much  understanding;  so  that  solitude  can  be 
well  fitted  and  sit  right,  but  upon  a  very  few  persons. 
They  must  have  enough  knowledge  of  the  world  to  see 
the  vanity  of  it,  and  enough  virtue  to  despise  all  vanity; 

15  if  the  mind  be  possessed  with  any  lust  or  passions,  a 
man  had  better  be  in  a  fair,  than  in  a  wood  alone.  They 
may,  like  petty  thieves,  cheat  us  perhaps,  and  pick  our 
pockets,  in  the  midst  of  company;  but,  like  robbers, 
they  use  to  strip  and  bind,  or  murder  us,  when  they  catch 

20  us  alone.  This  is  but  to  retreat  from  men,  and  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  devils.  It  is  like  the  punishment  of 
parricides  among  the  Romans,  to  be  sewed  into  a  bag, 
with  an  ape,  a  dog,  and  a  serpent. 

The  first  work,   therefore,   that  a  man  must  do,  to 

25  make  himself  capable  of  the  good  of  solitude,  is  the  very 
eradication  of  all  lusts;  for  how  is  it  possible  for  a  man 
to  enjoy  himself  while  his  afifections  are  tied  to  things 
without  himself?  In  the  second  place,  he  must  learn 
the  art  and  get  the  habit  of  thinking;  for  this,  too,  no 

30  less  than  well  speaking,  depends  upon  much  practice; 
and  cogitation  is  the  thing  which  distinguishes  the  soli- 
tude of  a  God  from  a  wild  beast.  Now,  because  the 
soul  of  man  is  not,  by  its  own  nature  or  observation, 
furnished  with  sufficient  materials  to  work  upon,  it  is 


Of  Solitude  13 

necessary  for  it  to  have  continual  recourse  to  learning 
and  books  for  fresh  supplies,  so  that  the  solitary  life 
will  grow  indigent,  and  be  ready  to  starve,  without 
them;  but  if  once  we  be  thoroughly  engaged  in  the  love 
of  letters,  instead  of  being  wearied  with  the  length  of  5 
any  day,  we  shall  only  complain  of  the  shortness  of  our 
whole  life. 

"O  vita,  stulto  longa,  sapienti  brevis!" 
O  life,  long  to  the  fool,  short  to  the  wise! 

The  first  minister  of  state  has  not  so  much  business  10 
in  public  as  a  wise  man  has  in  private:  if  the  one  have 
little  leisure  to  be  alone,  the  other  has  less  leisure  to  be 
in  company;  the  one  has  but  part  of  the  affairs  of  one 
nation,   the  other   all   the  works  of  God  and  nature, 
under   his   consideration.     There   is   no   saying   shocks  15 
me  so  much  as  that  which  I  hear  very  often,  "That  a  man 
does  not  know  how  to  pass  his  time."     It  would  have 
been  but  ill  spoken  by  Methuselah  in  the  nine  hundred 
and  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  life;  so  far  it  is  from  us, 
who  have  not  time  enough  to  attain  to  the  utmost  per-  20 
fection  of  any  part  of  any  science,  to  have  cause  to  com- 
plain that  we  are  forced  to  be  idle  for  want  of  work.     But 
this,  you  will  say,  is  work  only  for  the  learned;  others 
are  not  capable  either  of  the  employments  or  divertise- 
ments  that  arrive  from  letters.     I  know  they  are  not;  25 
and,  therefore,  cannot  much  recommend  solitude  to  a  man 
totally  illiterate.     But,  if  any  man  be  so  unlearned,  as 
to  want  entertainment  of  the  little  intervals  of  accidental 
solitude,  w^hich  frequently  occur  in  almost  all  conditions 
(except    the   very   meanest   of   the   people,    who    have  30 
business  enough  in  the  necessary  provisions  for  life), 
it  is  truly  a  great  shame  both  to  his  parents  and  himself; 
for  a  very  small  portion  of  any  ingenious  art  will  stop 


14  Abraham  Cowley 

lip  all  those  gaps  of  our  time;  either  niusic,  or  painting, 
or  designing,  or  chemistry,  or  history,  or  gardening,  or 
twenty  other  things,  will  do  it  usefully  and  pleasantly; 
and,  if  he  happen  to  set  his  affections  upon  poetr>'  (which 
5  I  do  not  advise  him  too  immoderately),  that  will  over-do 
it;  no  wood  wall  be  thick  enough  to  hide  him  from  the 
importunities  of  company  or  business,  which  would 
abstract  him  from  his  beloved. 

" O  qui  me  gelidis  in  vallibus  Haemi 


lo  Sistat,  et  ingenti  ramorum  protegat  umbra?" 

I 
Hail,  old  patrician  trees,  so  great  and  good! 
Hail,  ye  plebeian  under- wood! 
Where  the  poetic  birds  rejoice, 
And  for  their  quiet  nests  and  plenteous  food 
IS  Pay,  with  their  grateful  voice. 

2 

Hail,  the  poor  IMuses'  richest  manor-seati 
Ye  country  houses  and  retreat, 
Which  all  the  happy  gods  so  love, 
That  for  you  oft  they  quit  their  bright  and  great 
20  ^Metropolis  above. 

3 
Here  Nature  does  a  house  for  me  erect, 
Nature,  the  wisest  architect, 
Who  those  fond  artists  does  despise 
That  can  the  fair  and  living  trees  neglect; 
25  Yet  the  dead  timber  prize. 

4 
Here,  let  me,  careless  and  unthoughtful  lying, 
Hear  the  soft  winds,  above  me  flying, 
With  all  their  wanton  boughs  dispute, 
And  the  more  tuneful  birds  to  both  replying, 
30  Nor  be  myself,  too,  mute. 


Of  Solitude  15 

5 
A  silver  stream  shall  roll  his  waters  near, 

Gilt  with  the  sun-beams  here  and  there, 

On  whose  enamel'd  bank  I'll  walk, 
And  see  how  prettily  they  smile,  and  hear 

How  prettily  they  talk. 


Ah  wretched,  and  too  solitary  he, 

Who  loves  not  his  own  company! 

He'll  feel  the  weight  oft  many  a  day, 
Unless  he  call  in  sin  or  vanity 

To  help  to  bear't  away.  lO 

7 

Oh  Solitude,  first  state  of  human-kind! 

Which  blest  remain'd  till  man  did  find 

Ev'n  his  own  helper's  company. 
As  soon  as  two  (alas!)  together  join'd, 

The  serpent  made  up  three.  15 


Tho'  God  himself,  through  countless  ages,  thee 

His  sole  companion  chose  to  be, 

Thee,  sacred  Solitude,  alone, 
Before  the  branchy  head  of  number's  tree 

Sprang  from  the  trunk  of  one.  20 

9 
Thou  (tho'  men  think  mine  an  unactive  part) 

Dost  break  and  tame  th'  unruly  heart, 

Which  else  would  know  no  settled  pace. 
Making  it  move,  well  manag'd  by  thy  art. 

With  swiftness  and  with  grace.  2$ 


l6  Abraham  Cowley 


Thou  Ihe  faint  beams  of  reason's  scatter'd  light 
Dost,  like  a  burning  glass,  unite, 
Dost  multiply  the  feeble  heat, 

And  fortify  the  strength,  till  thou  dost  bright 
And  noble  fires  beget. 


Whilst  this  hard  truth  I  teach,  mcthinks  I  see 

The  monster  London  laugh  at  me; 

I  should  at  thee  too,  foolish  city, 
If  it  were  fit  to  laugh  at  misery; 
lo  But  thy  estate  I  pity. 

12 

Let  but  thy  wicked  men  from  out  thee  go, 
And  all  the  fools  that  crowd  thee  so, 
Even  thou,  who  dost  thy  millions  boast, 

A  village  less  than  Islington  wilt  grow, 
15  A  solitude  almost. 

OF  MYSELF 

It  is  a  hard  and  nice  subject  for  a  man  to  write  of 
himself;  it  grates  his  own  heart  to  say  anything  of  dis- 
paragement, and  the  reader's  ears  to  hear  anything  of 
praise  from  him.  There  is  no  danger  from  me  of  offend- 
so  ing  him  in  this  kind;  neither  my  mind,  nor  my  body, 
nor  my  fortune,  allow  me  my  materials  for  that  vanity. 
It  is  sufficient  for  my  own  contentment,  that  they  have 
preserved  me  from  being  scandalous,  or  remarkable 
on  the  defective  side.  But  besides  that,  I  shall  here 
25  speak  of  myself,  only  in  relation  to  the  subject  of  these 
precedent  discourses,  and  shall  be  likelier  thereby  to 
fall  into  the  contempt,  than  rise  up  to  the  estimation, 
of  most  people. 


Of  Myself  17 

As  far  as  my  memory  can  return  back  into  my  past 
life,  before  I  knew,  or  was  capable  of  guessing,  what 
the  world,  or  the  glories  or  business  of  it  were,  the  natural 
affections  of  my  soul  gave  me  a  secret  bent  of  aversion 
from  them,  as  some  plants  are  said  to  turn  away  from  5 
others,  by  an  antipathy  imperceptible  to  themselves, 
and  inscrutable  to  man's  understanding.  Even  when 
I  was  a  very  young  boy  at  school  instead  of  running 
about  on  holidays  and  playing  with  my  fellows,  I  was 
wont  to  steal  from  them,  and  walk  into  the  fields,  either  ic 
alone  with  a  book,  or  with  some  one  companion,  if  I 
could  find  any  of  the  same  temper.  I  was  then,  too, 
so  much  an  enemy  to  all  constraint,  that  my  masters 
could  never  prevail  on  me,  by  any  persuasions  or  encour- 
agements, to  learn  without  book  the  common  rules  of  15 
grammar;  in  which  they  dispensed  with  me  alone, 
because  they  found  I  made  a  shift  to  do  the  usual  exer- 
cise out  of  my  own  reading  and  observation.  That  I 
was  then  of  the  same  mind  as  I  am  now  (which,  I  confess, 
I  wonder  at,  myself)  may  appear  by  the  latter  end  of  20 
an  ode,  which  I  made  when  I  was  but  thirteen  years 
old,  and  which  was  then  printed  with  many  other  verses. 
The  beginning  of  it  is  boyish;  but  of  this  part,  which  I 
here  set  down  (if  a  very  Httle  were  corrected),  I  should 
hardly  now  be  much  ashamed.  25 

9 

This  only  grant  me,  that  my  means  may  lie 
Too  low  for  envy,  for  contempt  too  high. 

Some  honor  I  would  have, 
Not  from  great  deeds,  but  good  alone; 
The  unknown  are  better,  than  ill-known:  30 

Rumor  can  ope  the  grave. 
Acquaintance  I  would  have,  but  when't  depends 
Not  on  the  number,  but  the  choice  of  friends- 


Abraham  Cowley 


Books  should,  not  business,  entertain  the  light, 
And  sleep,  as  undisturb'd  as  death,  the  night. 

^ly  house  a  cottage  more 
Than  palace;  and  should  fitting  be 
For  all  my  use,  no  luxury. 

My  garden  painted  o'er 
With  Nature's  hand,  not  art's;  and  pleasures  yield, 
Horace  might  envy  in  his  Sabine  field. 


Thus  would  I  double  my  life's  fading  space; 
lo  For  he,  that  runs  it  well,  twice  runs  his  race. 

And  in  this  true  delight, 
These  unbought  sports,  this  happy  state, 
I  would  not  fear,  nor  wish,  my  fate; 
But  boldly  say  each  night, 
15  To-moirow  let  my  sun  his  beams  display. 

Or,  in  clouds  hide  them;  I  have  liv'd,  to-day. 

You  may  see  by  it,  I  was  even  then  acquainted  with 
the  poets  (for  the  conclusion  is  taken  out  of  Horace); 
and  perhaps  it  was  the  immature  and  immoderate  love 

20  of  them,  which  stamped  first,  or  rather  engraved,  these 
characters  in  me:  they  were  like  letters  cut  into  the  bark 
of  a  young  tree,  which  with  the  tree  still  grow  proportion- 
ably.  But  how  this  love  came  to  be  produced  in  me  so 
early,  is  a  hard  question.     I  believe  I  can  tell  the  particu- 

25  lar  little  chance  that  filled  my  head  first  with  such  chimes 
of  verse  as  have  never  since  left  ringing  there:  for  I 
remember,  when  I  began  to  read,  and  to  take  some 
pleasure  in  it,  there  was  wont  to  lie  in  my  mother's 
parlor  (I  know  not  by  what  accident,  for  she  herself 

30  never  in  her  life  read  any  book  but  of  devotion)  but 
there  was  wont  to  lie  Spenser's  works:  this  I  happened 
to  fall  upon,  and  was  infinitely  delighted  with  the  stories 


Of  Myself  19 

of  the  knights,  and  giants,  and  monsters,  and  brave 
houses,  which  I  found  everywhere  there  (though  my 
understanding  had  little  to  do  with  all  this);  and,  by 
degrees,  with  the  tinkling  of  the  rime  and  dance  of 
the  numbers;  so  that,  I  think,  I  had  read  him  all  over  5 
before  I  was  twelve  years  old,  and  was  thus  made  a  poet 
as  immediately  as  a  child  is  made  an  eunuch. 

With  these  affections  of  mind,  and  my  heart  wholly 
set  upon  letters,  I  went  to  the  university;  but  was  soon 
torn  from  thence  by  that  violent  public  storm,  which  10 
would  suffer  nothing  to  stand  where  it  did,  but  rooted 
up  every  plant,  even  from  the  princely  cedars  to  me  the 
hyssop.  Yet  I  had  as  good  fortune  as  could  have  befallen 
me  in  such  a  tempest;  for  I  was  cast  by  it  into  the  family 
of  one  of  the  best  persons,  and  into  the  court  of  one  of  15 
the  best  princesses,  of  the  world.  Now,  though  I  was 
here  engaged  in  ways  most  contrary  to  the  original 
design  of  my  life,  that  is,  into  much  company,  and  no 
small  business,  and  into  a  daily  sight  of  greatness,  both 
militant  and  triumphant  (for  that  was  the  state  then  20 
of  the  English  and  French  courts);  yet  all  this  was  so 
far  from  altering  my  opinion,  that  it  only  added  the  con- 
firmation of  reason  to  that  which  was  before  but  natural 
inclination.  I  saw  plainly  all  the  paint  of  that  kind 
of  life,  the  nearer  I  came  to  it;  and  that  beauty,  which  25 
I  did  not  fall  in  love  with,  when,  for  aught  I  knew,  it 
was  real,  was  not  like  to  bewitch  or  entice  me,  when  I 
saw  that  it  was  adulterate.  I  met  with  several  great 
persons,  whom  I  liked  very  well;  but  could  not  perceive 
that  any  part  of  their  greatness  was  to  be  liked  or  desired,  30 
no  more  than  I  would  be  glad  or  content  to  be  in  a  storm, 
though  I  saw  many  ships  which  rid  safely  and  bravely 
in  it.  A  storm  would  not  agree  with  my  stomach,  if  it 
did  with  my  courage.     Though  I  was  in  a  crowd  of  as 


20  Abraham  Cowley 

good  company  as  could  be  found  anywhere,  though  I 
was  in  business  of  great  and  honorable  trust,  though  I 
ate  at  the  best  table,  and  enjoyed  the  best  conveniences 
for  present  subsistence  that  ought  to  be  desired  by  a 
5  man  of  my  condition  in  banishment  and  public  distresses; 
yet  I  could  not  abstain  from  renewing  my  old  school- 
boy's wish,  in  a  copy  of  verses  to  the  same  effect: 

* 

Well  then;  I  now  do  plainly  see 
This  busy  world  and  I  shall  ne'er  agree,  etc. 

lo  And  I  never  then  proposed  to  myself  any  other  advan- 
tage from  his  majesty's  happy  Restoration,  but  the  get- 
ting into  some  moderately  convenient  retreat  in  the 
country;  which  I  thought,  in  that  case,  I  might  easily 
have  compassed,  as  well  as  some  others,  who  with  no 

15  greater  probabilities  or  pretences,  have  arrived  to  extra- 
ordinary fortune:  but  I  had  before  written  a  shrewd 
prophecy  against  myself;  and  I  think  Apollo  inspired 
me  in  the  truth,  though  not  in  the  elegance,  of  it: 

"Thou  neither  great  at  court,  nor  in  the  war, 
20  Nor  at  th'  exchange  shalt  be,  nor  at  the  wrangling  bar. 

Content  thyself  with  the  small  barren  praise, 
Which  neglected  voice  does  raise." 
She  spake;  and  all  my  years  to  come 
Took  their  unlucky  doom. 
25  Their  several  ways  of  life  let  others  choose, 

Their  several  pleasures  let  them  use; 
But  I  was  born  for  Love,  and  for  a  Muse. 

4 
With  Fate  what  boots  it  to  contend? 
Such  I  began,  such  am,  and  so  must  end. 
30  The  star,  that  did  my  being  frame, 

Was  but  a  lambent  flame. 


Of  Myself  21 ' 

And  some  small  light  it  did  dispense. 

But  neither  heat  nor  influence. 
No  matter,  Cowley;  let  proud  Fortune  see, 
That  thou  canst  her  despise  no  less  than  she  does  thee. 

Let  all  her  gifts  the  portion  be  g 

Of  folly,  lust,  and  flattery, 

Fraud,  extortion,  calumny. 

Murder,  infidelity. 

Rebellion  and  hypocrisy. 
Do  thou  nor  grieve  nor  blush  to  be,  lO 

As  all  th'  inspired  tuneful  men, 
And  all  thy  great  forefathers  were,  from  Homer  down  to  Ben- 

However,  by  the  failing  of  the  forces  which  I  had 
expected,  I  did  not  quit  the  design  which  I  had  resolved 
on;  I  cast  myself  into  it  a  corps  perdu,  without  making  15 
capitulations,  or  taking  counsel  of  fortune.     But  God 
laughs  at  a  man,  who  says  to  his  soul,  Take  thy  ease. 
I  met  presently  not  only  with  many  little  incumbrances 
and  impediments,  but  with  so  much  sickness   (a  new 
misfortune  to  me)  as  would  have  spoiled  the  happiness  20 
of  an  emperor  as  well  as  mine;  yet  I  do  neither  repent, 
nor  alter  my  course.     "  Non  ego  perfidum  dixi  sacramen- 
tum;"  nothing  shall  separate  me  from  a  mistress,  which 
I  have  loved  so  long,  and  have  now  at  last  married; 
though  she  neither  has  brought  me  a  rich  portion,  nor  25 
lived  yet  so  quietly  with  me  as  I  hoped  from  her: 

"Nee  vos,  dulcissima  mundi 


Nomina,  vos  Musae,  Libertas,  Otia,  Libri, 
Hortique  Sylvaeque,  anima  remanente,  relinquam." 

Nor  by  me  e'er  shall  you,  -^o 

You,  of  all  names  the  sweetest,  and  the  best, 
You,  Muses,  books,  and  liberty,  and  rest; 
You,  gardens,  fields,  and  woods,  forsaken  be, 
As  long  as  life  itself  forsakes  not  me. 


22  Abraham  Cowley 

But  this  is  a  very  pretty  ejacukition ;  because  I  have 
concluded  all  the  other  chapters  with  a  copy  of  verses, 
I  will  maintain  the  humor  to  the  last. 

MARTIAL,  LIB.  X.  EPIGR.  XLV 

5  "Vitam  quae  faciunt  beatiorem, 

Jucundissime  Martialis,  haec  sunt: 

Res  non  parta  labore,  sed  relicta; 

Non  ingratus  ager,  focus  perennis, 

Lis  nunquam;  toga  rara;  mens  quicta; 
lo  Vires  ingenuas;  salubre  corpus; 

Prudens  simplicitas;  pares  amici; 

Convictus  facilis;  sine  arte  mensa; 

Nox  non  ebria,  sed  soluta  curis; 

Non  tristis  torus,  et  tamen  pudicus; 
15  Somnus,  qui  faciat  br&ves  tenebras; 

Quod  sis,  esse  velis,  nihilque  malis: 

Summum  nee  metuas  diem,  nee  optes." 

Since,  dearest  friend,  'tis  you  desire  to  see 

A  true  receipt  of  happiness  from  me; 
20  These  are  the  chief  ingredients,  if  not  all: 

Take  an  estate  neither  too  gieat  nor  small, 

Which  quantum  sufficit  the  doctors  call. 

Let  this  estate  from  parents'  care  descend; 

The  getting  it  too  much  of  life  does  spend. 
25  Take  such  a  ground,  whose  gratitude  may  be 

A  fair  encouragement  for  industry. 

Let  constant  fires  the  winter's  fury  tame; 

And  let  thy  kitchen's  be  a  v^estal  flame. 

Thee  to  the  town  let  never  suit  at  law, 
30  And  rarely,  very  rarely,  business  draw. 

Thy  active  mind  in  equal  temper  keep, 

In  undisturbed  peace,  yet  not  in  sleep. 

Let  exercise  a  vigorous  health  maintain, 

Without  which  all  the  composition's  vain. 
35  In  the  same  weight  prudence  and  innocence  take. 

Ana  of  each  does  the  just  mixture  make. 


Of  Myself  23 

But  a  few  friendships  wear,  and  let  them  be 

By  nature  and  by  fortune  fit  for  thee. 

In;  tead  of  art  and  luxury  in  food, 

Let  mirth  and  freedom  make  thy  table  good. 

If  any  cares  into  thy  day-time  creep,  5 

At  night,  without  wine's  opium,  let  them  sleep. 

Let  rest,  which  nature  does  to  darkness  wed, 

And  not  lust,  recommend  to  thee  thy  bed. 

Be  satisfied,  and  pleased  with  what  thou  art. 

Act  cheerfully  and  well  th'  allotted  part;  10 

Enjoy  the  present  hour,  be  thankful  for  the  past. 

And  neither  fear,  nor  wish,  th'  approaches  of  the  last. 

MARTIAL,  LIB.  X.  EPIGR.  LXXXVII 

'  Saepe  loquar  nimium  gentes  quod,  avite,  remotas, 

Miraris,  Latia  factus  in  urbe  senex;  ^  5 

Auriferumque  Tagum  sitiam,  patriumque  Salonem, 

Et  repetam  saturas  sordida  rura  casse. 
Ilia  placet  tellus,  in  qua  res  parva  beatum 

Me  facit,  et  tenues  luxuriantur  opes. 
Pascitur  hie;  ibi  pascit  ager:  tepet  igne  maligno  20 

Hie  focus,  ingenti  lumine  lucet  ibi. 
Hie  pretiosa  fames,  conturbatorque  macellus, 

Mensa  ibi  divitiis  ruris  operta  sui. 
Quatuor  hie  aestate  toga;,  pluresve  teruntur; 

Autumnis  ibi  me  quatuor  una  tegit.  25 

I,  cole  nunc  reges:  quicquid  non  praestat  amicus 

Cum  praestare  tibi  possit,  avite,  locus." 

Me,  who  have  liv'd  so  long  among  the  great, 

You  wonder  to  hear  talk  of  a  retreat: 

And  a  retreat  so  distant,  as  may  show  3° 

No  thoughts  of  a  return,  when  once  I  go. 

Give  me  a  country,  how  remote  so  e'er, 

Where  happiness  a  mod'rate  rate  does  bear, 

Where  poverty  itself  in  plenty  flows, 

And  all  the  solid  use  of  riches  knows.  35 


24  Abraham  Cowley 

The  ground  about  the  house  maintains  it  there, 
The  house  maintains  the  ground  about  it  here. 
Here  even  hunger's  dear;  and  a  full  board 
Devours  the  vital  substance  of  the  lord. 
5  The  land  itself  docs  there  the  feaFt  bestow, 

The  land  itself  must  here  to  market  go. 
Three  or  four  suits  one  winter  hers  does  waste, 
One  suit  does  there  three  or  four  winters  last. 
Here  every  frugal  man  must  oft  be  cold, 

lo  And  little  lukewarm  fires  are  to  you  sold. 

There  fire's  an  element,  as  cheap  and  free, 
Almost  as  any  of  the  other  three. 
Stay  you  then  here,  and  live  among  the  great, 
Attend  their  sports,  and  at  their  tables  eat. 

15  When  all  the  bounties  here  of  men  you  score, 

The  place's  bounty  there  shall  give  me  more. 

EPITAPHIUM  VI VI  AUCTORIS 
"Hie,  o  viator,  sub  lare  parvulo 
Couleius  hie  est  conditus,  hie  jacet; 
20  Defunctus  humani  laboris 

Sorte,  supervacuaque  vita. 

Non  indecora  pauperie  nitens, 
Et  non  inerti  nobilis  otio, 
Vanoque  dilectis  popello 
^5  Divitiis  animosus  hostis. 

Possis  ut  ilium  dicere  mortuum; 

En  terra  jam  nunc  quantula  sufficit: 

Exempta  sit  curis,  viator. 

Terra  sit  ilia  levis,  precare. 

20  Hie  sparge  flores,  sparge  breves  rosas, 

Nam  vita  gaudet  mortua  floribus, 
Herbisque  odoratis  corona 
Vatis  adhuc  cinerem  ralentem." 


Of  Myself  25 

EPITAPH  ON  THE  LIVING  AUTHOR 


Here,  stranger,  in  this  humble  nest, 

Here,  Cowley  sleeps;  here  lies, 
Scap'd  all  the  toils,  that  life  molest, 

And  its  superfluous  joys. 

2 

Here,  in  no  sordid  poverty,  S 

And  no  inglorious  ease. 
He  braves  the  world,  and  can  defy 

Its  frowns  and  flatteries. 

3 
The  little  earth,  he  asks,  survey: 

Is  he  not  dead,  indeed?  lO 

"Light  lye  that  earth,"  good  stranger,  pray, 
"Nor  thorn  upon  it  breed!" 

4 
With  fiow'rs,  fit  emblem  of  his  fame. 

Compass  your  poet  round; 
With  flow'rs  of  ev'ry  fragrant  name  I"^ 

Be  his  warm  ashes  crown'dl 


SIR  RICHARD  STEELE 

RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHILDHOOD 

Dies,  ni  fallor,  adest,  quem  semper  acerbutn. 
Semper  honoratum,  sic  dii  voluistis,  habebo. 

Virg.  /En.  v.  49. 

And  now  the  rising  day  renews  the  year, 
5  A  day  for  ever  sad,  for  ever  dear. — Dryden. 

There  are  those  among  mankind,  who  can  enjoy  no 
relish  of  their  being,  except  the  world  is  made  acquainted 
with  all  that  relates  to  them,  and  think  every  thing  lost 
that  passes  unobserved;  but  others  find  a  solid  delight 

10  in  stealing  by  the  crowd,  and  modeling  their  life  after 
such  a  manner  as  is  as  much  above  the  approbation  as 
the  practice  of  the  vulgar.  Life  being  too  short  to  give 
instances  great  enough  of  true  friendship  or  good  will, 
some  sages  have  thought  it  pious  to  preserve  a  certain 

15  reverence  for  the  manes  of  their  deceased  friends;  and 
have  withdrawn  themselves  from  the  rest  of  the  world 
at  certain  seasons,  to  commemorate  in  their  own  thoughts 
such  of  their  acquaintance  who  have  gone  before  the^i 
out  of  this  life.     And  indeed,  when  we  are  advanced  in 

20  years,  there  is  not  a  more  pleasing  entertainment  than 
to  recollect  in  a  gloomy  moment  the  many  we  have 
parted  with,  that  have  been  dear  and  agreeable  to  us, 
and  to  cast  a  melancholy  thought  or  two  after  those  with 
whom,  perhaps,  we  have  indulged  ourselves  in  whole 

25  nights  of  mirth  and  jollity.     With  such  inclinations  in 

16 


Recollections  of  Childhood  27 

my  heart  I  went  to  my  closet  yesterday  in  the  evening, 
and  resolved  to  be  sorrowful;  upon  which  occasion  I 
could  not  but  look  with  disdain  upon  myself,  that 
though  all  the  reasons  which  I  had  to  lament  the  loss 
of  many  of  my  friends  are  now  as  forcible  as  at  the  5 
moment  of  their  departure,  yet  did  not  my  heart  swell 
with  the  same  sorrpw  which  I  felt  at  the  time;  but  I 
could,  without  tears,  reflect  upon  many  pleasing  adven- 
tures I  have  had  with  some  who  have  long  been 
blended  with  common  earth.  Though  it  is  by  the  benefit  10 
of  nature,  that  length  of  time  thus  blots  out  the  violence 
of  afflictions;  yet,  with  tempers  too  much  given  to  pleas- 
ure, it  is  almost  necessary  to  revive  the  old  places  of 
grief  in  our  memory;  and  ponder  step  by  step  on  past 
life,  to  lead  the  mind  into  that  sobriety  of  thought  which  1 5 
poises  the  heart,  and  makes  it  beat  with  due  time,  with- 
out being  quickened  with  desire  or  retarded  with  despair, 
from  its  proper  and  equal  motion.  When  we  wind  up 
a  (lock  that  is  out  of  order,  to  make  it  go  well  for  the 
future,  we  do  not  immediately  set  the  hand  to  the  pres-  20 
ent  instant,  but  we  make  it  strike  the  round  of  all  its 
hours,  before  it  can  recover  the  regularity  of  its  time. 
Such,  thought  I,  shall  be  my  method  this  evening;  and 
since  it  is  that  day  of  the  year  which  I  dedicate  to  the 
memory  of  such  in  another  life  as  I  much  delighted  in  25 
when  living,  an  hour  or  two  shall  be  sacred  to  sorrow  and 
their  memory,  while  I  run  over  all  the  melancholy  circum- 
stances of  this  kind  which'  have  occurred  to  me  in  my 
whole  life. 

The  first  sense  of  sorrow  I  ever  knew  was  upon  the  30 
death  of  my  father,  at  which  time  I  was  not  quite  five 
years  of  age;  but  was  rather  amazed  at  what  all  the  house 
meant,  than  possessed  with  a  real  understanding  why 
nobody  was  willing  to  play  with  me.     I  remember  I 


28  Sir  Richard  Steele 

went  into  the  room  where  his  body  lay,  and  my  mother 
sat  weeping  alone  by  it.  I  had  my  battledore  in  my 
hand,  and  fell  a  beating  the  coffin,  and  calling  Papa;  for, 
I  know  not  how,  I  had  some  slight  idea  that  he  was 
5  locked  up  there.  My  mother  catched  me  in  her  arms, 
and,  transported  beyond  all  patience  of  the  silent  grief 
she  was  before  in,  she  almost  smothered  me  in  her 
embraces;  and  told  me  in  a  flood  of  tears,  "Papa  could 
not  hear  me,  and  would  play  with  me  no  more,  for  they 

lo  were  going  to  put  him  under  ground,  whence  he  could 
never  come  to  us  again."  She  was  a  very  beautiful 
woman,  of  a  noble  spirit,  and  there  was  dignity  in  her 
grief  amidst  all  the  wildness  of  her  transport;  which, 
methought,  struck  me  with  an  instinct  of  sorrow,  that, 

15  before  I  was  sensible  of  what  it  was  to  grieve,  seized  my 
very  soul,  and  has  made  pity  the  weakness  of  my  heart 
ever  since.  The  mind  in  infancy  is,  methinks,  like  the 
body  in  embryo;  and  receives  impressions  so  forcible 
that  they  are  as  hard  to  be  removed  by  reason,  as  any 

20  mark  with  which  a  child  is  born  is  to  be  taken  away  by 
any  future  application.  Hence  it  is  that  good-nature 
in  me  is  no  merit;  but  having  been  so  frequently  over- 
whelmed with  her  tears  before  I  knew  the  cause  of  any 
affliction,  or  could  draw  defences  from  my  own  judgment, 

25  I  imbibed  commiseration,  remorse,  and  an  unmanly 
gentleness  of  mind,  which  has  since  insnared  me  into 
ten  thousand  calamities;  and  from  whence  I  can  reap  no 
advantage,  except  it  be,  that,  in  such  a  humor  as  I  am 
now  in,  I  can  the  better  indulge  myself  in  the  softness  of 

30  humanity,  and  enjoy  that  sweet  anxiety  which  arises 
from  the  memory  of  past  afflictions. 

We  that  are  very  old  are  better  able  to  remember  things 
which  befell  us  in  our  distant  youth,  than  the  passages  of 
later  days.     For  this  reason  it  is  that  the  companions  of 


Recollections  of  Childhood  29 

my  strong  and  vigorous  years  present  themselves  more 
immediately  to  me  in  this  office  of  sorrow.  Untimely  and 
unhappy  deaths  are  what  we  are  most  apt  to  lament;  so 
little  are  we  able  to  make  it  indifferent  when  a  thing 
happens,  though  we  know  it  must  happen.  Thus  we  5 
groan  under  life  and  bewail  those  who  are  relieved  from  it. 
Every  object  that  returns  to  our  imagination  raises  differ- 
ent passions,  according  to  the  circumstances  of  their 
departure.  Who  can  have  lived  in  an  army,  and  in  a 
serious  hour  reflect  upon  the  many  gay  and  agreeable  10 
men  that  might  long  have  flourished  in  the  arts  of  peace, 
and  not  join  with  the  imprecations  of  the  fatherless  and 
widow  on  the  tyrant  to  whose  ambition  they  fell  sacrifices? 
But  gallant  men  who  are  cut  off  by  the  sword,  move 
rather  our  veneration  than  our  pity;  and  we  gather  relief  15 
enough  from  their  own  contempt  of  death,  to  make 
that  no  evil,  which  was  approached  with  so  much  cheer- 
fulness and  attended  with  so  much  honor.  But  when 
we  turn  our  thoughts  from  the  great  parts  of  life  on  such 
occasions,  and  instead  of  lamenting  those  who  stood  20 
ready  to  give  death  to  those  from  whom  they  had  the  for- 
tune to  receive  it;  I  say,  when  we  let  our  thoughts  wander 
from  such  noble  objects  and  consider  the  havoc  which 
is  made  among  the  tender  and  the  innocent,  pity  enters 
with  an  unmixed  softness  and  possesses  all  our  souls  at  25 
once. 

Here  (were  there  words  to  express  such  sentiments 
with  proper  tenderness)  I  should  record  the  beauty, 
innocence,  and  untimely  death  of  the  first  object  my 
eyes  ever  beheld  with  love.  The  beauteous  virgin!  how  s*^ 
ignorantly  did  she  charm,  how  carelessly  excel!  Oh 
death!  thou  hast  right  to  the  bold,  to  the  ambitious, 
to  the  high,  and  to  the  haughty;  but  why  this  cruelty 
to  the  humble,  to  the  meek,  to  the  undiscerning,  to  the 


30  Sir  Richard  Steele 

thoughtless?  Nor  age,  nor  business,  nor  distress  can 
erase  the  dear  image  from  my  imagination.  In  the 
same  week,  I  saw  her  dressed  for  a  ball,  and  in  a  shroud. 
How  ill  did  the  habit  of  death  become  the  pretty  trifler? 
5  I  still  behold  the  smiling  earth A  large  train  of  dis- 
asters were  coming  on  to  my  memory,  when  my  servant 
knocked  at  my  closet-door  and  interrupted  me  with  a 
letter,  attended  with  a  hamper  of  wine,  of  the  same  sort 
with  that  which  is  to  be  put  to  sale  on  Thursday  next 

lo  at  Garraway's  coffee-house.  Upon  the  receipt  of  it,  I 
sent  for  three  of  my  friends.  We  are  so  intimate  that  we 
can  be  company  in  whatever  state  of  mind  we  meet, 
and  can  entertain  each  other  without  expecting  always 
to  rejoice.     The  wine  we  found  to  be  generous  and  warm- 

15  ing,  but  with  such  a  heat  as  moved  us  rather  to  be  cheer- 
ful than  frolicsome.  It  revived  the  spirits,  without 
firing  the  blood.  We  commended  it  until  two  of  the 
clock  this  morning;  and  having  to-day  met  a  little 
before  dinner,   we  found,   that   though   we  drank   two 

20  bottles  a  man,  we  had  much  more  reason  to  recollect 
than  forget  what  had  passed  the  night  before. 

A  VISIT  TO  A  FRIEND 

Interea  dukes  pendent  circum  oscula  nati, 

Casta  pudicitiam  servat  domus. 

Virg.  Georg.  ii.  523. 

25  His  cares  are  eas'd  with  intervals  of  bliss; 

His  little  children,  climbing  for  a  kiss, 
Welcome  their  father's  late  return  at  night. 

There  are  several  persons  who  have  many  pleasures 

and  entertainments  in  their  possession,  which  they  do 

30  not  enjoy.     It  is,  therefore,  a  kind  and  good  office  to 

acquaint  them  with  their  own  happiness  and  turn  their 


A  Visit  to  a  Friend  3T 

attention  to  such  instances  of  their  good  fortune  as  they 
are  apt  to  overlook.  Persons  in  the  married  state  often 
want  such  a  monitor;  and  pine  away  their  days,  by 
looking  upon  the  same  condition  in  anguish  and  murmur, 
which  carries  with  it  in  the  opinion  of  others  a  compUca-  5 
tion  of  all  the  pleasures  of  life,  and  a  retreat  from  its 
inquietudes. 

I  am  led  into  this  thought  by  a  visit  I  made  an  old 
friend,  who  was  formerly  my  schoolfellow.  He  came  to 
town  last  week  with  his  family  for  the  winter,  and  yester-  10 
day  morning  sent  me  word  his  wife  expected  me  to  dinner. 
I  am,  as  it  were,  at  home  at  that  house,  and  every  mem- 
ber of  it  knows  me  for  their  well-wisher.  I, cannot  in- 
deed express  the  pleasure  it  is,  to  be  met  by  the  children 
with  so  much  joy  as  I  am  when  I  go  thither.  The  boys  15 
and  girls  strive  who  shall  come  first,  when  they  think  it 
is  I  that  am  knocking  at  the  door;  and  that  child  which 
loses  the  race  to  me  runs  back  again  to  tell  the  father  it 
is  Mr.  Bickerstaff.  This  day  I  was  led  in  by  a  pretty 
girl  that  we  all  thought  must  have  forgot  me;  for  the  20 
family  has  been  out  of  town  these  two  years.  Her 
knowing  me  again  was  a  mighty  subject  with  us,  and 
took  up  our  discourse  at  the  first  entrance.  After  which, 
they  began  to  rally  me  upon  a  thousand  little  stories  they 
heard  in  the  countr>',  about  my  marriage  to  one  of  my  25 
neighbor's  daughters.  Upon  which  the  gentleman,  my 
friend,  said,  "Nay,  if  Mr.  BickerstafT  marries  a  child  of 
any  of  his  old  companions,  I  hope  mine  shall  have  the 
preference;  there  is  Mrs.  Mary  is  now  sixteen  and  would 
make  him.  as  fine  a  widow  as  the  best  of  them.  But  I  30 
know  him  too  well;  he  is  so  enamored  with  the  very 
memory  of  those  who  flourished  in  our  youth,  that  he 
will  not  so  much  as  look  upon  the  modern  beauties.  I 
remember,  old  gentleman,  how  often  you  went  home  in 


32  Sir  Richard  Steele 

a  day  to  refresh  your  countenance  and  dress  when  Tera- 
minta  reigned  in  your  heart.  As  we  came  up  in  the 
coach,  I  repeated  to  my  wife  some  of  your  verses  on  her." 
With  such  reflections  on  little  passages  which  happened 
5  long  ago,  we  passed  our  time,  during  a  cheerful  and 
elegant  meal.  After  dinner  his  lady  left  the  room,  as 
did  also  the  children.  As  soon  as  we  were  alone,  he  took 
me  by  the  hand:  "Well,  my  good  friend,"  says  he,  "I 
am  heartily  glad  to  see  thee;  I  was  afraid  you  would 

lo  never  have  seen  all  the  company  that  dined  with  you 
to-day  again.  Do  not  you  think  the  good  woman  of 
the  house  a  little  altered  since  you  followed  her  from 
the  playhouse,  to  find  out  who  she  was,  for  me?"  I 
perceived  a  tear  fall  down  his  cheek  as  he  spoke,  which 

15  moved  me  not  a  little.  But,  to  turn  the  discourse,  I 
said,  "She  is  not  indeed  quite  that  creature  she  was, 
when  she  returned  me  the  letter  I  carried  from  you;  and 
told  me,  'she  hoped,  as  I  was  a  gentleman,  I  would  be 
employed  no  more  to  trouble  her,  who  had  never  offended 

20  me;  but  would  be  so  much  the  gentleman's  friend,  as  to 
dissuade  him  from  a  pursuit  which  he  could  never  succeed 
in.'  You  may  remember,  I  thought  her  in  earnest;  and 
you  were  forced  to  employ  your  cousin  Will,  who  made 
his  sister  get  acquainted  with  her  for  you.     You  cannot 

^5  expect  her  to  be  for  ever  fifteen."  "Fifteen!"  replied 
my  good  friend:  "Ah!  you  little  understand,  you  that 
have  lived  a  bachelor,  how  great,  how  exquisite  a  pleas- 
ure there  is  in  being  really  beloved!  It  is  impossible 
that  the  most  beauteous  face  in  nature  should  raise  in 

30  me  such  pleasing  ideas  as  when  I  look  upon  that  excellent 
woman.  That  fading  in  her  countenance  is  chiefly 
caused  by  her  watching  with  me  in  my  fever.  This  was 
followed  by  a  fit  of  sickness,  which  had  like  to  have 
carried  her  off  last  winter.     I  tell  you  sincerely,  I  have 


A  Visit  to  a  Friend  33 

so  many  obligations  to  her  that  I  cannot,  with  any  sort 
of  moderation,  think  of  her  present  state  of  health. 
But  as  to  what  you  say  of  fifteen,  she  gives  me  every  day 
pleasures  beyond  what  I  ever  knew  in  the  possession  of 
her  beauty,  when  I  was  in  the  vigor  of  youth.  Every  5 
moment  of  her  life  brings  me  fresh  instances  of  her 
complacency  to  my  inclinations  and  her  prudence  in 
regard  to  my  fortune.  Her  face  is  to  me  much  more 
beautiful  than  when  I  first  saw  it;  there  is  no  decay  in 
any  feature  which  I  cannot  trace  from  the  very  instant  10 
it  was  occasioned  by  some  anxious  concern  for  my 
welfare  and  interests.  Thus,  at  the  same  time,  methinks, 
the  love  I  conceived  toward  her  for  what  she  was,  is 
heightened  by  my  gratitude  for  what  she  is.  The  love 
of  a  wife  is  as  much  above  the  idle  passion  commonly  15 
called  by  that  name  as  the  loud  laughter  of  buflfoons  is 
inferior  to  the  elegant  mirth  of  gentlemen.  Oh!  she  is 
an  inestimable  jewel.  In  her  examination  of  her  house- 
hold affairs,  she  shows  a  certain  fearfulness  to  find  a 
fault,  which  makes  her  servants  obey  her  like  children;  2c 
and  the  meanest  we  have  has  an  ingenuous  shame  for 
an  offence,  not  always  to  be  seen  in  children  in  other 
families.  I  speak  freely  to  you,  my  old  friend;  ever 
since  her  sickness,  things  that  gave  me  the  quickest  joy 
before,  turn  now  to  a  certain  anxiety.  As  the  children  25 
play  in  the  next  room,  I  know  the  poor  things  by  their 
steps,  and  am  considering  what  they  must  do,  should 
they  lose  their  mother  in  their  tender  years.  The  pleas- 
ure I  used  to  take  in  telling  my  boy  stories  of  battles,  and 
asking  my  girl  questions  about  the  disposal  of  her  baby,  30 
and  the  gossiping  of  it,  is  turned  into  inward  reflection 
and  melancholy." 

He  would  have  gone  on  in  this  tender  way,  when  the 
good  lady  entered,  and  with  an  inexpressible  sweetness 


34  Sir  Richard  Steele 

in  her  countenance  told  us  she  had  been  searching  her 
closet  for  something  very  good,  to  treat  such  an  old 
friend  as  I  was.  Her  husband's  eyes  sparkled  with 
pleasure  at  the  cheerfulness  of  her  countenance;  and  I 
5  saw  all  his  fears  vanish  in  an  instant.  The  lady,  observ- 
ing something  in  our  looks  which  showed  we  had  been 
more  serious  than  ordinary,  and  seeing  her  husband 
receive  her  with  great  concern  under  a  forced  cheerful- 
ness, immediately  guessed  at  what  we  had  been  talking 

lo  of;  and  applying  herself  to  me,  said,  with  a  smile,  "Mr. 
Bickerstaff,  do  not  believe  a  word  of  what  he  tells  you, 
I  shall  still  live  to  have  you  for  my  second,  as  I  have 
often  promised  you,  unless  he  takes  more  care  of  him- 
self than  he  has  done  since  his  coming  to  town.     You 

IS  must  know,  he  tells  me  that  he  finds  London  is  a  much 
more  healthy  place  than  the  country;  for  he  sees  several 
of  his  old  acquaintance  and  schoolfellows  are  here  young 
fellows  with  fair  full-bottomed  periwigs.  I  could  scarce 
keep  him  in  this  morning  from  going  out  open-breasted." 

20  My  friend,  who  is  always  extremely  delighted  with  her 
agreeable  humor,  made  her  sit  down  with  us.  She  did 
it  with  that  easiness  which  is  peculiar  to  women  of  sense; 
and  to  keep  up  the  good  humor  she  had  brought  in  with 
her,   turned   her  raillery  upon  me.     "Mr.   Bickerstaff, 

25  you  remember  you  followed  me  one  night  from  the 
playhouse;  suppose  you  should  carry  me  thither  to- 
morrow night  and  lead  me  into  the  front  box."  This 
put  us  into  a  long  field  of  discourse  about  the  beauties 
who  were  mothers  to  the  present  and  shined  in  the  boxes 

30  twenty  years  ago.  I  told  her,  "  I  was  glad  she  had  trans- 
ferred so  many  of  her  charms,  and  I  did  not  question 
but  her  eldest  daughter  was  within  half  a  year  of  being  a 
toast." 

We  were  pleasing  ourselves  with  this  fantastical  prefer- 


A  Visit  to  a  Friend  35 

ment  of  the  young  lady,  when  on  a  sudden  we  were 
alarmed  with  the  noise  of  a  drum,  and  immediately 
entered  my  little  godson  to  give  me  a  point  of  war.  His 
mother,  between  laughing  and  chiding,  would  have  put 
him  out  of  the  room;  but  I  would  not  part  with  him  so.  5 
I  found,  upon  conversation  with  him,  though  he  was  a 
little  noisy  in  his  mirth,  that  the  child  had  excellent 
parts,  and  was  a  great  master  of  all  the  learning  on  the 
other  side  eight  years  old.  I  perceived  him  a  very  great 
historian  in  ^Esop's  Fables:  but  he  frankly  declared  to  10 
me  his  mind,  "that  he  did  not  delight  in  that  learning, 
because  he  did  not  believe  they  were  true";  for  which 
reason  I  found  he  had  very  much  turned  his  studies,  for 
about  a  twelvemonth  past,  into  the  lives  and  adventures 
of  Don  Belianis  of  Greece,  Guy  of  Warwick,  the  Seven  15 
Champions,  and  other  historians  of  that  age.  I  could 
not  but  observe  the  satisfaction  the  father  took  in  the 
forwardness  of  his  son;  and  that  these  diversions  might 
turn  to  some  profit,  I  found  the  boy  had  made  remarks 
which  might  be  of  service  to  him  during  the  course  of  his  20 
whole  life.  He  would  tell  you  the  mismanagements  of 
John  Hickerthrift,  find  fault  with  the  passionate  temper 
in  Bevis  of  Southampton,  and  loved  Saint  George  for 
being  the  champion  of  England;  and  by  this  means  had 
his  thoughts  insensibly  molded  into  the  notions  of  25 
discretion,  virtue,  and  honor.  I  was  extoUing  his  ac- 
complishments, when  the  mother  told  me  that  the  Httle 
girl  who  led  me  in  this  morning  w^as  in  her  way  a  better 
scholar  than  he.  "Betty,"  said  she,  "deals  chiefly  in 
fairies  and  sprites;  and  sometimes  in  a  winter  night  will  30 
terrify  the  maids  with  her  accounts,  until  they  are  afraid 
to  go  up  to  bed." 

I  sat  with  them  until  it  was  very  late,  sometimes  in 
merry,  sometimes  in  serious  discourse,  with  this  particu- 


36  Sir  Richard  Steele 

lar  pleasure,  which  gives  the  only  true  relish  to  all  con- 
versation, a  sense  that  every  one  of  us  liked  each  other. 
I  went  home,  considering  the  different  conditions  of  a 
married  life  and  that  of  a  bachelor;  and  I  must  confess  it 
5  struck  me  with  a  secret  concern,  to  reflect  that  whenever 
I  go  off  I  shall  leave  no  traces  behind  me.  In  this  pensive 
mood  I  returned  to  my  family;  that  is  to  say,  to  my  maid, 
my  dog,  and  my  cat,  who  only  can  be  the  better  or 
worse  for  what  happens  to  me. 

MR.  BICKERSTAFF'S  THREE  NEPHEWS 

10  The  vigilance,  the  anxiety,  the  tenderness,  which  I 
have  for  the  good  people  of  England,  I  am  persuaded, 
will  in  time  be  much  commended;  but  I  doubt  whether 
they  will  be  ever  rewarded.  However,  I  must  go  on 
cheerfully  in  my  work  of  reformation:  that  being  my 

15  great  design,  I  am  studious  to  prevent  my  labor's  in- 
creasing upon  me;  therefore  am  particularly  observant 
of  the  temper  and  inclinations  of  childhood  and  youth, 
that  we  may  not  give  vice  and  folly  supplies  from  the 
growing  generation.     It  is  hardly  to  be  imagined  how 

20  useful  this  study  is,  and  what  great  evils  or  benefits  arise 
from  putting  us  in  our  tender  years  to  what  we  are  fit 
and  unfit:  therefore,  on  Tuesday  last  (with  a  design  to 
sound  their  inclinations)  I  took  three  lads,  who  are  under 
my    guardianship,    a-rambling  in  a  hackney-coach,   to 

25  show  them  the  town;  as  the  lions,  the  tombs,  Bedlam, 
and  the  other  places  which  are  entertainments  to  raw 
minds,  because  they  strike  forcibly  on  the  fancy.  The 
boys  are  brothers,  one  of  sixteen,  the  other  of  fourteen 
the  other  of  twelve.     The  first  was  his  father's  darling, 

30  the  second  his  mother's  and  the  third  mine,  who  am 
their  uncle.     Mr.  William  is  a  lad  of  true  genius;  but. 


Mr.   Bickerstaff's  Three  Nephews  i"] 

being  at  the  upper  end  of  a  great  school,  and  having 
all  the  boys  below  him,  his  arrogance  is  insupportable. 
If  I  begin  to  show  a  little  of  my  Latin,  he  immediately 
interrupts:  "Uncle,  under  favor,  that  which  you  say,  is 
i,  not  understood  in  that  manner."  "Brother,"  says  my  5 
'boy  Jack,  "you  do  not  show  your  manners  much  in 
contradicting  my  uncle  Isaac!"  "You  cjueer  cur," 
says  Mr.  William,  "do  you  think  my  uncle  takes  any 
notice  of  such  a  dull  rogue  as  you  are?"  Mr.  William 
goes  on,  "He  is  the  most  stupid  of  all  my  mother's  10 
children:  he  knows  nothing  of  his  book:  when  he  should 
mind  that,  he  is  hiding  or  hoarding  his  taws  and  marbles, 
or  laying  up  farthings.  His  way  of  thinking  is,  four-and- 
twenty  farthings  make  sixpence,  and  two  sixpences  a 
shilling;  two  shillings  and  sixpence  half-a-crown,  and  15 
two  half-crowns  five  shillings.  So  within  these  two 
months  the  close  hunks  has  scraped  up  twenty  shillings, 
and  we  will  make  him  spend  it  all  before  he  comes  home." 
Jack  immediately  claps  his  hands  into  both  pockets, 
and  turns  as  pale  as  ashes.  There  is  nothing  touches  a  20 
parent  (and  such  I  am  to  Jack)  so  nearly  as  a  provident 
conduct.  This  lad  has  in  him  the  true  temper  for  a 
good  husband,  a  kind  father,  and  an  honest  executor. 

All  the  great  people  you  see  make  considerable  figures 
on  the  exchange,  in  court,  and  sometimes  in  senates,  are  25 
such  as  in  reality  have  no  greater  faculty  than  what  may 
be  called  human  instinct,  which  is  a  natural  tendency 
to  their  own  preservation,  and  that  of  their  friends, 
without  being  capable  of  striking  out  the  road  for  adven- 
turers. There  is  Sir  William  Scrip  was  of  this  sort  of  30 
capacity  from  his  childhood;  he  has  bought  the  country 
round  him,  and  makes  a  bargain  better  than  Sir  Harry 
Wildfire,  with  all  his  wit  and  humor.  Sir  Harry  never 
wants  money  but  he  comes  to  Scrip,  laughs  at  him  half 


jS  Sir  Richard  Steele 

an  hour,  and  then  gives  bond  for  the  other  thousand. 
The  close  men  are  incapable  of  placing  merit  anywhere 
but  in  their  pence,  and  therefore  gain  it;  while  others 
who  have  larger  capacities,  are  diverted  from  the  pur- 
5  suit  by  enjoyments  which  can  be  supported  only  by 
that  cash  which  they  despise;  and,  therefore,  are  in  the 
end  slaves  to  their  inferiors  both  in  fortune  and  under- 
standing. I  once  heard  a  man  of  excellent  sense  observe 
that  more  affairs  in  the  world  failed  by  being  in  the  hands 

lo  of  men  of  too  large  capacities  for  their  business  than  by 
being  in  the  conduct  of  such  as  wanted  abilities  to  exe- 
cute them.  Jack,  therefore,  being  of  a  plodding  make, 
shall  be  a  citizen:  and  I  design  him  to  be  the  refuge  of 
his  family  in  their  distress,  as  well  as  their  jest  in  pros- 

15  perity.  His  brother  Will  shall  go  to  Oxford  with  all 
speed,  where,  if  he  does  not  arrive  at  being  a  man  of 
sense,  he  will  soon  be  informed  wherein  he  is  a  coxcomb. 
There  is  in  that  place  such  a  true  spirit  of  raillery  and 
humor,  that  if  they  cannot  make  you  a  wise  man,  they 

20  will  certainly  let  you  know  you  are  a  fool;  which  is  all 
my  cousin  wants,  to  cease  to  be  so.  Thus,  having 
taken  these  two  out  of  the  way,  I  have  leisure  to  look 
at  my  third  lad.  I  observe  in  the  young  rogue  a  natural 
subtility  of  mind,  which  discovers  itself  rather  in  for- 

25  bearing  to  declare  his  thoughts  on  any  occasion,  than  in 
any  visible  way  of  exerting  himself  in  discourse.  For 
which  reason  I  will  place  him,  where,  if  he  commits  no 
faults,  he  may  go  farther  than  those  in  other  stations, 
though  they  excel  in  virtues.     The  boy  is  well-fashioned 

30  and  will  easily  fall  into  a  graceful  manner;  wherefore, 
I  have  a  design  to  make  him  a  page  to  a  great  lady  of 
my  acquaintance;  by  which  means  he  will  be  well  skilled 
in  the  common  modes  of  life,  and  make  a  greater  prog- 
ress  in   the    world  by  that  knowledge,  than  with  the 


Mr.  Bickerstaff's  Three  Nephews  39 

greatest  quaUties  without  it.  A  good  mien  in  a  court 
will  carry  a  man  greater  lengths  than  a  good  under- 
standing in  any  other  place.  We  see  a  world  of  pains 
taken  and  the  best  years  of  life  spent  in  collecting  a 
set  of  thoughts  in  a  college  for  the  conduct  of  life,  and,  5 
after  all,  the  man  so  qualified  shall  hesitate  in  a  speech 
to  a  good  suit  of  clothes,  and  want  common  sense  before 
an  agreeable  woman.  Hence  it  is  that  wisdom,  valor, 
justice,  and  learning  cannot  keep  a  man  in  countenance 
that  is  possessed  with  these  excellencies,  if  he  wants  10 
that  inferior  art  of  life  and  behavior  called  good-breed- 
ing. A  man  endowed  with  great  perfections,  without 
this,  is  like  one  who  has  his  pockets  full  of  gold  but 
always  wants  change  for  his  ordinary  occasions. 

Will  Courtly  is  a  living  instance  of  this  truth,  and  has  15 
had  the  same  education  which  I  am  giving  my  nephew. 
He  never  spoke  a  thing  but  what  was  said  before,  and 
yet  can  converse  with  the  wittiest  men  without  being 
ridiculous.    Among   the  learned,   he  does   not   appear 
ignorant;  nor  with  the  wise,  indiscreet.     Living  in  con-  20 
versation  from  his  infancy,  makes  him    no  where   at  a 
loss;  and  a  long  familiarity  with  the  persons  of  men  is, 
in  a  manner,  of  the  same  service  to  him  as  if  he  knew 
their  arts.     As  ceremony  is  the  invention  of  wise  men  to 
keep  fools  at  a  distance,  so  good-breeding  is  an  expedient  25 
to  make  fools  and  wise  men  equals. 


JOSEPH  ADDISON 

NED  SOFTLY 

''Idem  inficeto  est  inficetior  rure 
Simul  poemata  attigit;  neque  idem  unquam 
/Eque  est  beatus,  ac  poema  cum  scribit: 
Tam  gaudet  in  se,  tamque  se  ipse  miratur. 
5  Nimirum  idem  omnes  fallimur;  neque  est  quisquam 

Quem  non  in  aliqua  re  videre  Sufifenum 

Possis" 

— Catul.  de  Suffeno,  20.14. 

Will's  Cofee-house,  April  24  [1710]. 

10  I  yesterday  came  hither  about  two  hours  before  the 
company  generally  make  their  appearance,  with  a  design 
to  read  over  all  the  newspapers;  but  upon  my  sitting 
down  I  was  accosted  by  Ned  Softly,  who  saw  me  from  a 
corner  in  the  other  end  of  the  room,  where  I  found  he 

15  had  been  writing  something.  "Mr.  Bickerstaff,"  says 
he,  "I  observe  by  a  late  paper  of  yours  that  you  and  I 
are  just  of  a  humor;  for  you  must  know,  of  all  imperti- 
nences there  is  nothing  which  I  so  much  hate  as  news.  I 
never  read  a  gazette  in  my  life;  and  never  trouble  my 

20  head  about  our  armies,  whether  they  win  or  lose,  or  in 
what  part  of  the  world  they  lie  encamped."  Without 
giving  me  time  to  reply  he  drew  a  paper  of  verses  out  of 
his  pocket,  telling  me  that  he  had  something  which  would 
entertain  me  more  agreeably,  and  that  he  would  desire 

25  my  judgment  upon  every  line,  for  that  we  had  time 
enough  before  us  until  the  company  came  in. 

40 


Ned  Softly  41 

Ned  Softly  is  a  very  pretty  poet  and  a  great  admirer 
of  easy  lines.  Waller  is  his  favorite:  and  as  that  ad- 
mirable writer  has  the  best  and  worst  verses  of  any 
among  our  great  English  poets,  Ned  Softly  has  got  all 
the  bad  ones  without  book,  which  he  repeats  upon  occa-  5 
sion,  to  show  his  reading  and  garnish  his  conversation. 
Ned  is  indeed  a  true  EngHsh  reader,  incapable  of  relish- 
ing the  great  and  masterly  strokes  of  this  art;  but  won- 
derfully pleased  with  the  little  gothic  ornaments  of  epi- 
grammatical  conceits,  turns,  points,  and  quibbles,  which  10 
are  so  frequent  in  the  most  admired  of  our  English 
poets,  and  practised  by  those  who  want  genius  and 
strength  to  represent,  after  the  manner  of  the  ancients, 
simplicity  in  its  natural  beauty  and  perfection. 

Finding  myself  unavoidably  engaged  in  such  a  con-  15 
versation,  I  was  resolved  to  turn  my  pain  into  a  pleasure 
and  to  divert  myself  as  well  as  I  could  with  so  \  ery  odd 
a  fellow.  "You  must  understand,"  says  Ned,  "that  the 
sonnet  I  am  going  to  read  to  you  was  written  upon  a 
lady,  who  showed  me  some  verses  of  her  own  making,  20 
and  is  perhaps  the  best  poet  of  our  age.  But  you  shall 
hear  it."     Upon  which  he  begun  to  read  as  follows: 

"TO  MIRA,  ON  HER  INCOMPARABLE  POEMS 


'  When  dressed  in  laurel  wreaths  you  shine, 

And  tune  your  soft  melodious  notes,  25 

You  seem  a  sister  of  the  Nine, 
Or  Phoebus'  self  in  petticoats. 


■'I  fancy,  when  your  song  you  sing 

(Your  song  you  sing  with  so  much  art), 
Your  pen  was  plucked  from  Cupid's  wing;  30 

For  ah!  it  wounds  me  like  his  dart." 


42  Joseph  Addison 

"Why,"  says  I,  "this  is  a  Httle  nosegay  of  conceits,  a 
very  lump  of  salt:  every  verse  hath  something  in  it 
that  piques;  and  then  the  dart  in  the  last  line  is  certainly 
as  pretty  a  sting  in  the  tail  of  an  epigram  (for  so  I 
5  think  your  critics  call  it)  as  ever  entered  into  the  thought 
of  a  poet."  "Dear  Mr.  Bickerstaff,"  says  he,  shaking 
me  by  the  hand,  "everybody  knows  you  to  be  a  judge 
of  these  things;  and  to  tell  you  truly,  I  read  over  Ros- 
common's translation  of  Horace's  Art  of  Poetry  three 
lo  several  times  before  I  sat  down  to  write  the  sonnet  which 
I  have  shown  you.  But  you  shall  hear  it  again,  and  pray 
observe  every  line  of  it,  for  not  one  of  them  shall  pass 
without  your  approbation. 

"W'hcn  dressed  in  laurel  wreaths  you  shine. 

15  "That  is,"  says  he,  "when  you  have  your  garland  on; 
when  you  are  writing  verses."  To  which  I  replied,  "I 
know  your  meaning:  a  metaphor!"  "The  same,"  said 
he,  and  went  on: 

"And  lune  your  soft  melodious  notes. 

20  "Pray  observe  the  gliding  of  that  verse;  there  is  scarce 
a  consonant  in  it:  I  took  care  to  make  it  run  upon 
liquids.  Give  me  youropinion  of  it."  "Truly,"  said 
I,  "I  think  it  as  good  as  the  former."  "I  am  very  glad 
to  hear  you  say  so,"  says  he;  "but  mind  the  next: 


25 


'You  seem  a  sister  of  the  Nine. 


"That  is,"  says  he,  "you  seem  a  sister  of  the  Muses; 
for  if  you  look  into  ancient  authors,  you  will  fmd  it  was 
their  opinion  that  there  were  nine  of  them."  "I  re- 
member it  very  well,"  said  I;  "but  pray  proceed." 

30  "Or  Phabus'  self  in  petticoats. 


Ned  Softly  43 

"Phoebus,"  says  he,  "was  the  god  of  poetry.  These 
little  instances,  Mr.  Bickerstaff,  show  a  gentleman's 
reading.  Then,  to  take  off  from  the  air  of  learning 
which  Phoebus  and  the  Muses  have  given  to  this  first 
stanza,  you  may  observe  how  it  falls  all  of  a  sudden  5 
into  the  familiar:  'in  petticoats!' 

"Or  Phoebus'  self  in  petticoats." 

"Let  us  now,"  says  I,  "enter  upon  the  second  stanza 
I  find  the  first  line  is  still  a  continuation  of  the  metaphor- 

"I  fancy  when  your  song  you  sing."  ^° 

"It  is  very  right,"  says  he;  "but  pray  observe  the  turn 
of  words  in  those  two  lines.  I  was  a  whole  hour  in  ad- 
justing of  them,  and  have  still  a  doubt  upon  me  whether 
in  the  second  Hne  it  should  be,  'Your  song  you  sing'; 
or,  'You  sing  your  song.'     You  shall  hear  them  both:      j- 

"I  fancy,  when  your  song  you  sing, 

(Your  song  you  sing  with  so  much  art), 

"or, 

"I  fancy,  when  your  song  you  sing, 

(You  sing  your  song  with  so  much  art).  20 

"Truly,"  said  I,  "the  turn  is  so  natural  either  way  that 
you  have  made  me  almost  giddy  with  it."  "Dear  sir," 
said  he,  grasping  me  by  the  hand,  "you  have  a  great  deal 
of  patience;  but  pray  what  do  you  think  of  the  next  verse? 

"Your  pen  was  plucked  from  Cupid's  wing."  25 

"Think!"  says  I,  "I  think  you  have  made  Cupid  look 
like  a  little  goose."  "That  was  my  meaning,"  says  he; 
"  I  think  the  ridicule  is  well  enough  hit  off.  But  we  come 
now  to  the  last,  which  sums  up  the  whole  matter. 

"For  ah!  it  wounds  me  like  his  dart.  SO 


44  Joseph  Addison 

"Pray  how  do  you  Hke  that  'ah'?  Doth  it  not  make  a 
pretty  figure  in  that  place?  'Ah!' — it  looks  as  if  I  felt 
the  dart  and  cried  out  at  being  pricked  with  it. 

"  For  ah!  it  wounds  me  like  his  dart. 

e  "My  friend,  Dick  Easy,"  continued  he,  "assured  me 
he  would  rather  have  written  that  'ah!'  than  to  have 
been  the  author  of  the  ^neid.  He  indeed  objected  that 
I  made  Mira's  pen  like  a  quill  in  one  of  the  hnes,  and 
like  a  dart  in  the  other.     But  as  to  that "     "Oh,  as 

lo  to  that,"  says  I,  "it  is  but  supposing  Cupid  to  be  like  a 
porcupine,  and  his  quills  and  darts  will  be  the  same 
thing."  He  was  going  to  embrace  me  for  the  hint;  but 
half  a  dozen  critics  coming  into  the  room,  whose  faces 
he  did  not  like,  he  conveyed  the  sonnet  into  his  pocket, 

15  and  whispered  me  in  the  ear  he  would  show  it  me  again 
as  soon  as  his  man  had  written  it  over  fair. 

SIR    ROGER    DE   COVERLEY   IN   WESTMINSTER 
ABBEY 

Ire  tamen  restat  Numa  quo  devenit  et  Ancus. 

HOR. 

My  friend  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  told  me  t'other  night 
20  that  he  had  been  reading  my  paper  upon  Westminster 
Abbey,  "in  which,"  says  he,  "there  are  a  great  many 
ingenious  fancies."  He  told  me,  at  the  same  time,  that 
be  observed  I  had  promised  another  paper  upon  the 
tombs,  and  that  he  should  be  glad  to  go  and  sec  them  with 
25  me,  not  having  visited  them  since  he  had  read  history. 
I  could  not  at  first  imagine  how  this  came  into  the  knight's 
head,  till  I  recollected  that  he  had  been  very  busy  all  last 
summer  upon  Baker's  Chronicle,  which  he  has  quoted 
several  times  in  his  disputes  with  Sir  Andrew  Freeport 


Sir  Roger  in  Westminster  Abbey  45 

since  his  last  coming  to  town.  Accordingly,  I  promised 
to  call  upon  him  the  next  morning,  that  we  might  go 
together  to  the  Abbey. 

I  found  the  knight  under  his  butler's  hands,  who  always 
shaves  him.  He  was  no  sooner  dressed  than  he  called  for  5 
a  glass  of  the  Widow  Trueby's  water,  which  he  told  me 
he  always  drank  before  he  went  abroad.  He  recom- 
mended me  to  a  dram  of  it  at  the  same  time  with  so 
much  heartiness  that  I  could  not  forbear  drinking  it. 
As  soon  as  I  had  got  it  down,  I  found  it  very  unpalatable;  10 
upon  which  the  knight,  observing  that  I  had  made  several 
wry  faces,  told  me  that  he  knew  I  should  not  like  it  at 
first,  but  that  it  was  the  best  thing  in  the  world  against 
the  stone  or  gravel.  I  could  have  wished,  indeed,  that 
he  had  acquainted  me  with  the  virtues  of  it  sooner;  but  15 
it  was  too  late  to  complain,  and  I  knew  what  he  had  done 
was  out  of  good-will.  Sir  Roger  told  me,  further,  that 
he  looked  upon  it  to  be  very  good  for  a  man,  whilst 
he  stayed  in  town,  to  keep  off  infection;  and  that  he  got 
together  a  quantity  of  it  upon  the  first  news  of  the  sick-  20 
ness  being  at  Dantzic.  When,  of  a  sudden,  turning  short 
to  one  of  his  servants,  who  stood  behind  him,  he  bid  him 
call  a  hackney-coach,  and  take  care  it  was  an  elderly  man 
that  drove  it. 

He  then  resumed  his  discourse  upon  Mrs.  Trueby's  25 
water,  telling  me  that  the  Widow  Trueby  was  one  who 
did  more  good  than  all  the  doctors  and  apothecaries  in 
the  county;  that  she  distilled  every  poppy  that  grew 
within  five  miles  of  her;  that  she  distributed  her  water 
gratis  among  all  sorts  of  people.  To  which  the  knight  3c 
added  that  she  had  a  very  great  jointure,  and  that  the 
whole  country  would  fain  have  it  a  match  between 
him  and  her.  "And  truly,"  said  Sir  Roger,  "if  I  had 
not  been  engaged,  perhaps  I  could  not  have  done  better." 


46  Joseph  Addison 

His  discourse  was  broken  off  by  his  man's  teUing  him 
he  had  called  a  coach.  Upon  our  going  to  it,  after  hav- 
ing cast  his  eye  upon  the  wheels,  he  asked  the  coachman 
if  his  axle-tree  was  good;  upon  the  fellow's  telling  him 
5  he  would  warrant  it,  the  knight  turned  to  me,  told 
me  he  looked  like  an  honest  man,  and  went  in  without 
further  ceremony. 

We  had  not  gone  far  when  Sir  Roger,  popping  out  his 
head,  called  the  coachman  down  from  his  box,  and  upon 

10  his  presenting  himself  at  the  window,  asked  him  if  he 
smoked.  As  I  was  considering  what  this  would  end  in, 
he  bid  him  stop  by  the  way  at  any  good  tobacconist's, 
and  take  in  a  roll  of  their  best  Virginia.  Nothing  mate- 
rial happened  in  the  remaining  part  of  our  journey  till 

15  we  were  set  down  at  the  west  end  of  the  Abbey. 

As  we  went  up  the  body  of  the  church,  the  knight 
pointed  at  the  trophies  upon  one  of  the  new  monuments, 
and  cried  out,  "A  brave  man,  I  warrant  him!"  Passing 
afterward  by  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel,  he  flung  his  hand 

20  that  way,  and  cried,  ''Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel!  a  very 
gallant  man!"  As  we  stood  before  Busby's  tomb,  the 
knight  uttered  himself  again  after  the  same  manner: 
"Dr.  Busby^a  great  man!  he  whipped  my  grandfather 
— a  very  great  man!    I  should  have  gone  to  him  myself 

25  if  I  had  not  been  a  blockhead — a  very  great  man!" 

We  were  immediately  conducted  into  the  Httle  chapel 
on  the  right  hand.  Sir  Roger,  planting  himself  at  our 
historian's  elbow,  was  very  attentive  to  everything  he 
said,  particularly  to  the  account  he  gave  us  of  the  lord 

30  who  had  cut  off  the  King  of  Morocco's  head.  Among 
several  other  figures,  he  was  very  well  pleased  to  see  the 
statesman  Cecil  upon  his  knees;  and,  concluding  them 
all  to  be  great  men,  was  conducted  to  the  figure  which 
represents  that  martyr  to  good  housewifery  who  died  by 


Sir  Roger  in  Westminster  Abbey  47 

the  prick  of  a  needle.  Upon  our  interpreter's  telling  us 
that  she  was  a  maid  of  honor  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  the 
'  knight  was  very  inquisitive  into  her  name  and  family ;  and 
after  having  regarded  her  finger  for  some  time,  "I  won- 
der," says  he,  "that  Sir  Richard  Baker  has  said  nothing  5 
of  her  in  his  Chronicle.^' 

We  were  then  conveyed  to  the  two  coronation  chairs, 
where  my  old  friend,  after  having  heard  that  the  stone 
underneath  the  most  ancient  of  them,  which  was  brought 
from  Scotland,  was  called  Jacob's  Pillar,  sat  himself  down  10 
in  the  chair,  and  looking  like  the  figure  of  an  old  Gothic 
king,  asked  our  interpreter  what  authority  they  had  to 
say  that  Jacob  had  ever  been  in  Scotland.     The  fellow, 
instead  of  returning  him  an  answer,  told  him  that  he 
hoped  his  honor  would  pay  his  forfeit.     I  could  observe  15 
Sir  Roger  a  little  ruffled  upon  being  thus  trepanned;  but, 
our  guide  not  insisting  upon  his  demand,  the  knight  soon 
recovered  his  good  humor,  and  whispered  in  my  ear  that 
if  Will  Wimble  were  with  us,  and  saw  those  two  chairs, 
it  would  go  hard  but  he  would  get  a  tobacco-stopper  out  20 
of  one  or  t'other  of  them. 

Sir  Roger,  in  the  next  place,  laid  his  hand  upon  Ed- 
ward the  Third's  sword,  and  leaning  upon  the  pommel 
of  it,  gave  us  the  whole  history  of  the  Black  Prince; 
concluding  that,  in  Sir  Richard  Baker's  opinion,  Edward  25 
the  Third  was  one  of  the  greatest  princes  that  ever  sat 
upon  the  English  throne. 

We  were  then  shown  Edward  the  Confessor's  tomb, 
upon  which  Sir  Roger  acquainted  us  that  he  was  the  first 
who    touched    for  the  evil;   and  afterward  Henry  the  30 
Fourth's,  upon  which  he  shook  his  head  and  told  us  there 
was  fine  reading  in  the  casualties  of  that  reign. 

Our  conductor  then  pointed  to  that  monument  where 
there  is  a  figure  of  one  of  our  English  kings  without  a 


48  Joseph  Addison 

head;  and  upon  giving  us  to  know  that  the  head,  which 
was  of  beaten  silver,  had  been  stolen  away  several  years 
since — "Some  Whig,  I'll  warrant  you,"  says  Sir  Roger;" 
"you  ought  to  lock  up  your  kings  better;  they  will  carry 
5  off  the  body  too,  if  you  don't  take  care." 

The  glorious  names  of  Henry  the  Fifth  and  Queen 
Elizabeth  gave  the  knight  great  opportunities  of  shining 
and  of  doing  justice  to  Sir  Richard  Baker,  who,  as  our 
knight  observed  with  some  surprise,  had  a  great  many 

10  kings  in  him  whose  monuments  he  had  not  seen  in  the 
Abbey. 

For  my  own  part,  I  could  not  but  be  pleased  to  see  the 
knight  show  such  an  honest  passion  for  the  glory  of  his 
country,  and  such  a  respectful  gratitude  to  the  memory 

15  of  its  princes. 

I  must  not  omit  that  the  benevolence  of  my  good  old 
friend,  which  flows  out  toward  every  one  he  converses 
with,  made  him  very  kind  to  our  interpreter,  whom  he 
looked  upon  as  an  extraordinary  man;  for  which  reason 

20  he  shook  him  by  the  hand  at  parting,  telling  him  that  he 
should  be  very  glad  to  see  him  at  his  lodgings  in  Norfolk 
Buildings,  and  talk  over  these  matters  with  him  more  at 
leisure. 

REFLECTIONS  IN  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY 

Pallida  mors  aequo  pulsat  pede  pauperum  tabernas 
25  Rcguraque  turres.     O  beate  Sesti, 

VitCE  summa  brevis  spem  nos  vetat  incohare  longam. 

Jam  te  premet  nox,  fabulsque  manes, 
Et  domus  exilis  Plutonia Hor. 

When  I  am  in  a  serious  humor,  I  very  often  walk  by 
30  myself  in  Westminster  Abbey;  where  the  gloominess  of  the 
pJace  and  the  use  to  which  it  is  applied,  with  the  solem- 
nity of  the  building  and  the  condition  of  the  people  who 


Reflections  in  Westminster  Abbey  49 

lie  in  it,  are  apt  to  fill  the  mind  with  a  kind  of  melancholy, 
or  rather  thoughtfulness,  that  is  not  disagreeable.  I 
yesterday  passed  a  whole  afternoon  in  the  churchyard, 
the  cloisters,  and  the  church,  amusing  myself  with  the 
tombstones  and  inscriptions  that  I  met  with  in  those  5 
several  regions  of  the  dead.  Most  of  them  recorded 
nothing  else  of  the  buried  person  but  that  he  was  born 
upon  one  day  and  died  upon  another;  the  whole  history 
of  his  life  being  comprehended  in  those  two  circumstances 
that  are  common  to  all  mankind.  I  could  not  but  look  ic 
upon  these  registers  of  existence,  whether  of  brass  or 
marble,  as  a  kind  of  satire  upon  the  departed  persons 
who  had  left  no  other  memorial  of  them  but  that  they 
were  born  and  that  they  died.  They  put  me  in  mind  of 
several  persons  mentioned  in  the  battles  of  heroic  poems,  15 
who  have  sounding  names  given  them  for  no  other  reason 
but  that  they  may  be  killed,  and  are  celebrated  for  noth- 
ing but  being  knocked  on  the  head.  The  life  of  these 
men  is  finely  described  in  Holy  Writ  by  "  the  Path  of  an 
Arrow,"  which  is  immediately  closed  up  and  lost.  20 

Upon  my  going  into  the  church,  I  entertained  myself 
with  the  digging  of  a  grave;  and  saw  in  every  shovelfull 
of  it  that  was  thrown  up  the  fragment  of  a  bone  or 
skull  intermixed  with  a  kind  of  fresh  mouldering  earth 
that  some  time  or  other  had  a  place  in  the  Composi-  25 
tion  of  a  human  body.  Upon  this,  I  began  to  consider 
with  myself  what  innumerable  multitudes  of  people  lay 
confused  together  under  the  pavement  of  that  ancient 
cathedral;  how  men  and  women,  friends  and  enemies, 
priests  and  soldiers,  monks  and  prebendaries,  were  crum-  30 
bled  amongst  one  another  and  blended  together  in  the 
same  common  mass;  how  beauty,  strength,  and  youth, 
with  old  age,  weakness,  and  deformity,  lay  undistin- 
guished in  the  same  promiscuous  heap  of  matter. 


50  Joseph  Addison 

After  having  thus  surveyed  this  great  magazine  of 
mortahty,  as  it  were,  in  the  lump,  I  examined  it  more 
particularly  by  the  accounts  which  I  found  on  several 
of  the  monuments  which  are  raised  in  every  quarter  of 
5  that  ancient  fabric.  Some  of  them  were  covered  with 
such  extravagant  epitaphs  that,  if  it  were  possible  for 
the  dead  person  to  be  acquainted  with  them,  he  would 
blush  at  the  praises  which  his  friends  have  bestowed 
upon  him.     There  are  others  so  excessively  modest,  that 

lo  they  deliver  the  character  of  the  person  departed  in 
Greek  or  Hebrew,  and  by  that  means  are  not  understood 
once  in  a  twelvemonth.  In  the  poetical  quarter,  I  found 
there  were  poets  who  had  no  monuments,  and  monuments 
which  had  no  poets.     I  observed  indeed  that  the  present 

15  war  had  fdled  the  church  with  many  of  these  uninhabited 
monuments,  which  had  been  erected  to  the  memory  of 
persons  whose  bodies  were  perhaps  buried  in  the  plains  of 
Blenheim,  or  in  the  bosom  of  the  ocean. 

I  could  not  but  be  very  much  delighted  with  several 

20  modern  epitaphs,  which  are  written  with  great  elegance 
of  expression  and  justness  of  thought,  and  therefore  do 
honor  to  the  living  as  well  as  to  the  dead.  As  a  foreigner 
is  very  apt  to  conceive  an  idea  of  the  ignorance  or  polite- 
ness of  a  nation  from  the  turn  of  their  public  monuments 

25  and  inscriptions,  they  should  be  submitted  to  the  perusal 
of  men  of  learning  and  genius  before  they  are  put  in  exe- 
cution. Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel's  monument  has  very 
often  given  me  great  offence.  Instead  of  the  brave  rough 
English  admiral,  which  was  the  distinguishing  character 

30  of  that  plain  gallant  man,  he  is  represented  on  his  tomb 
by  the  figure  of  a  beau,  dressed  in  a  long  perriwig,  and 
reposing  himself  upon  velvet  cushions  under  a  canopy  of 
state.  The  inscription  is  answerable  to  the  monument; 
for  instead  of  celebrating  the  many  remarkable  actions 


Reflections  in  Westminster  Abbey  51 

he  had  performed  in  the  service  of  his  country,  it  acquaints 
us  only  with  the  manner  of  his  death,  in  which  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  reap  any  honor.  The  Dutch,  whom 
we  are  apt  to  despise  for  want  of  genius,  shew  an  infinitely 
greater  taste  of  antiquity  and  politeness  in  their  buildings  5 
and  works  of  this  nature,  than  what  we  meet  with  in 
those  of  our  own  country.  The  monuments  of  their 
admirals,  which  have  been  erected  at  the  public  expense, 
represent  them  like  themselves;  and  are  adorned  with 
rostral  crowns  and  naval  ornaments,  with  beautiful  10 
festoons  of  seaweed,  shells,  and  coral. 

But  to  return  to  our  subject.  I  have  left  the  reposi- 
tory of  our  English  kings  for  the  contemplation  of  another 
day,  when  I  shall  find  my  mind  disposed  for  so  serious 
an  amusement.  I  know  that  entertainments  of  this  15 
nature  are  apt  to  raise  dark  and  dismal  thoughts  in  timor- 
ous minds  and  gloomy  imaginations;  but  for  my  own  part, 
though  I  am  always  serious,  I  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be 
melancholy,  and  can  therefore  take  a  view  of  nature  in 
her  deep  and  solemn  scenes,  with  the  same  pleasure  as  in  20 
her  most  gay  and  delightful  ones.  By  this  means  I  can 
improve  myself  with  those  objects  which  others  consider 
with  terror.  When  I  look  upon  the  tombs  of  the  great, 
every  emotion  of  envy  dies  in  me;  when  I  read  the  epi- 
taphs of  the  beautiful,  every  inordinate  desire  goes  out;  25 
when  I  meet  with  the  grief  of  parents  upon  a  tombstone, 
my  heart  melts  with  compassion;  when  I  see  the  tomb 
of  the  parents  themselves,  I  consider  the  vanity  of  griev- 
ing for  those  whom  we  must  quickly  follow.  When  I 
see  kings  lying  by  those  who  deposed  them,  when  I  30 
consider  rival  wits  placed  side  by  side,  or  the  holy  men 
that  divided  the  world  with  their  contests  and  disputes, 
I  reflect  with  sorrow  and  astonishment  on  the  little 
competitions,  factions,  and  debates  of  mankind.     When  I 


52  Joseph  Addison 

read  the  several  dates  of  the  tombs,  of  some  that  died 
yesterday,  and  some  six  hundred  years  ago,  I  consider 
that  great  day  when  we  shall  all  of  us  be  contemporaries, 
and  make  our  appearance  together. 


CHARLES  LAMB 

A  QUAKERS'  MEETING 

"Still-born  Silence?  thou  that  art 

Flood-gate  of  the  deeper  heart!    ' 

Offspring  of  a  heavenly  kind! 

Frost  o'  the  mouth,  and  thaw  o'  the  mind! 

Secrecy's  confidant,  and  he  5 

Who  makes  religion  mystery! 

Admiration's  speaking'st  tongue! 

Leave,  thy  desert  shades  among, 

Reverend  hermits'  hallowed  cells, 

Where  retired  devotion  dwells!  lO 

With  thy  enthusiasms  come, 

Seize  our  tongues,  and  strike  us  dumb!" 


Reader,  would'st  thou  know  what  true  peace  and 
quiet  mean:  would'st  thou  find  a  refuge  from  the  noises 
and  clamors  of  the  multitude;  would'st  thou  enjoy  at  15 
once  solitude  and  society;  would'st  thou  possess  the 
depth  of  thine  own  spirit  in  stillness,  without  being  shut 
out  from  the  consolatory  faces  of  thy  species;  would'st 
thou  be  alone,  and  yet  accompanied;  solitary,  yet  not 
desolate;  singular,  yet  not  without  some  to  keep  thee  in  20 
countenance; — a  unit  in  aggregate;  a  simple  in  compos- 
ite:— come  with  me  into  a  Quakers'  Meeting. 

Dost  thou  love  silence  deep  as  that  "before  the  winds 
were  made"?  go  not  out  into  the  wilderness,  descend  not 

53 


54  Charles  Lamb 

into  the  profundities  of  the  earth;  shut  not  up  thy  case- 
ments; nor  pour  wax  into  the  little  cells  of  thy  ears, 
with  little-faith'd  self-mistrusting  Ulysses. — Retire  with 
me  into  a  Quakers'  Meeting. 
5  For  a  man  to  refrain  even  from  good  words,  and  to 
hold  his  peace,  it  is  commendable;  but  for  a  multitude, 
it  is  great  mastery. 

What  is  the  stillness  of  the  desert,  compared  with  this 
place?  what  the  uncommunicating  muteness  of  fishes? — 

lo  here  the  goddess  reigns  and  revels. — ''  Boreas,  and  Cesias, 
and  Argestes  loud,"  do  not  with  their  inter-confounding 
uproars  more  augment  the  brawl — nor  the  waves  of  the 
blown  Baltic  with  their  clubbed  sounds — than  their  oppo- 
site (Silence  her  sacred  self)  is  multiplied  and  rendered 

15  more  intense  by  numbers,  and  by  sympathy.  She  too 
hath  her  deeps,  that  call  unto  deeps.  Negation  itself 
hath  a  positive  more  or  less;  and  closed  eyes  would  seem 
to  obscure  the  great  obscurity  of  midnight. 

There  are  wounds,  which  an  imperfect  solitude  can- 

20  not  heal.  By  imperfect  I  mean  that  which  a  man  en- 
joyeth  by  himself.  The  perfect  is  that  which  he  can 
sometimes  attain  in  crowds,  but  nowhere  so  absolutely 
as  in  a  Quakers'  JNIeeting. — Those  first  hermits  did  cer- 
tainly understand  this  principle,  when  they  retired  into 

25  Egyptian  solitudes,  not  singly,  but  in  shoals,  to  enjoy 
one  another's  want  of  conversation.  The  Carthusian  is 
bound  to  his  brethren  by  this  agreeing  spirit  of  incom- 
municativeness.  In  secular  occasions,  what  so  pleas- 
ant as  to  be  reading  a  book  through  a  long  winter  evening, 

30  with  a  friend  sitting  by — say,  a  wife — he,  or  she,  too 
(if  that  be  probable),  reading  another,  without  inter- 
ruption, or  oral  communication? — can  there  be  no  sym- 
pathy without  the  gabble  of  words? — away  with  this 
inhuman,   shy,   single,  shade-and-cavern-haunting  soli- 


A  Quakers'  A/[eeting  55 

tariness.  Give  me,  Master  Zimmerman,  a  sympathetic 
solitude. 

To  pace  alone  in  the  cloisters,  or  side  aisles  of  some 
cathedral,  time-stricken: 

Or  under  hanging  mountains,  g 

Or  by  the  fall  of  fountains; 

is  but  a  vulgar  luxury,  compared  with  that  which  those 
enjoy,  who  come  together  for  the  purposes  of  more  com- 
plete, abstracted  solitude.  This  is  the  loneliness  "to 
be  felt." — The  Abbey  Church  of  Westminster  hath  noth-  jq 
ing  so  solemn,  so  spirit-soothing,  as  the  naked  walls  and 
benches  of  a  Quakers'  Meeting.  Here  are  no  tombs,  no 
inscriptions, 

sands,  ignoble  things, 

Dropt  from  the  ruined  sides  of  kings —  ^5 

but  here  is  something,  which  throws  Antiquity  herself 
into  the  foreground — Silence — eldest  of  things — lan- 
guage of  old  Night — primitive  Discourser — to  which  the 
insolent  decays  of  mouldering  grandeur  have  but  arrived 
by  a  violent,  and,  as  we  may  say,  unnatural  progression.  20 

How  reverend  is  tlie  view  of  these  hushed  heads, 
Looking  tranquillity! 

Nothing  -  plotting,  nought  -  caballing,  unmischievous 
synod !  convocation  without  intrigue !  parliament  without 
debate!  what  a  lesson  dost  thou  read  to  council,  and  to  25 
consistory!  if  my  pen  treat  of  you  lightly — as  haply  it 
will  wander — yet  my  spirit  hath  gravely  felt  the  wisdom 
of  your  custom,  when  sitting  among  you  in  deepest  peace, 
which  some  out-welling  tears  would  rather  confirm 
than  disturb,  I  have  reverted  the  times  of  your  be-  30 
ginnings,  and  the    sowings    of   the    seed   by    Fox    and 


56  Charles  Lamb 

Devvsbury. — I  have  witnessed  that,  which  brought 
before  my  eyes  your  heroic  tranquillity,  inflexible  to  the 
rude  jests  and  serious  violences  of  the  insolent  soldiery, 
republican  or  royalist,  sent  to  molest  you — for  ye  sate 
5  betwixt  the  fires  of  two  persecutions,  the  outcast  and  ofif- 
scowering  of  church  and  presbytery. — I  have  seen  the 
reeling  sea-ruffian,  who  had  wandered  into  your  recep- 
tacle, with  the  avowed  intention  of  disturbing  your  quiet, 
from  the  very  spirit  of  the  place  receive  in  a  moment 

10  a  new  heart,  and  presently  sit  among  ye  as  a  lamb  amidst 
lambs.  And  I  remembered  Penn  before  his  accusers,  and 
Fox  in  the  bail-dock,  where  he  was  lifted  up  in  spirit,  as 
he  tells  us,  and  "the  judge  and  the  jury  became  as  dead 
men  under  his  feet." 

15  Reader,  if  you  are  not  acquainted  with  it,  I  would 
recommend  to  you,  above  all  church-narratives,  to  read 
Sewel's  History  of  the  Quakers.  It  is  in  folio,  and  is  the 
abstract  of  the  journals  of  Fox,  and  the  primitive  Friends, 
It  is  far  more  edifying  than  anything  you  will  read  of 

20  Wesley  and  his  colleagues.  Here  is  nothing  to  stagger 
you,  nothing  to  make  you  mistrust,  no  suspicion  of  alloy, 
no  drop  or  dreg  of  the  worldly  or  ambitious  spirit.  You 
will  here  read  the  true  story  of  that  much-injured, 
ridiculed  man  (who  perhaps  hath  been  a  by-word  in  your 

25  mouth) — James  Nay  lor:  what  dreadful  sufferings,  with 
what  patience,  he  endured  even  to  the  boring  through  of 
his  tongue  with  red-hot  irons  without  a  murmur;  and 
with  what  strength  of  mind,  when  the  delusion  he  had 
fallen  into,  which  they  stigmatized  for  blasphemy,  had 

30  given  way  to  clearer  thoughts,  he  could  renounce  his 
error,  in  a  strain  of  the  beautifullest  humility,  yet  keep 
his  first  grounds,  and  be  a  Quaker  still! — so  different 
from  the  practice  of  your  common  converts  from  enthu- 
siasm, who,  when  they  apostatize,  apostatize  all,  and  think 


A  Quakers'  Meeting  57 

they  can  never  get  far  enough  from  the  society  of  their 
former  errors,  even  to  the  renunciation  of  some  saving 
truths,  with  which  they  had  been  mingled,  not  implicated. 

Get  the  writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart;  and  love 
the  early  Quakers.  5 

How  far  the  followers  of  these  good  men  in  our  days 
have  kept  to  the  primitive  spirit,  or  in  what  proportion 
they  have  substituted  formality  for  it,  the  Judge  of  Spirits 
can  alone  determine.  I  have  seen  faces  in  their  assem- 
blies, upon  which  the  dove  sate  visibly  brooding.  Others  10 
again  I  have  watched,  when  my  thoughts  should  have 
been  better  engaged,  in  which  I  could  possibly  detect 
nothing  but  a  blank  inanity.  But  quiet  was  in  all,  and 
the  disposition  to  unanimity,  and  the  absence  of  the  fierce 
controversial  workings. — If  the  spiritual  pretensions  of  15 
the  Quakers  have  abated,  at  least  they  make  few  pre- 
tences. Hypocrites  they  certainly  are  not,  in  their  preach- 
ing. It  is  seldom  indeed  that  you  shall  see  one  get 
up  amongst  them  to  hold  forth.  Only  now  and  then  a 
trembling  female,  generally  ancient,  voice  is  heard — you  20 
cannot  guess  from  what  part  of  the  meeting  it  proceeds — 
with  a  low,  buzzing,  musical  sound,  laying  out  a  few 
words  which  "she  thought  might  suit  the  condition  of 
some  present,"  with  a  quaking  diffidence,  which  leaves 
no  possibility  of  supposing  that  any  thing  of  female  25 
vanity  was  mixed  up,  where  the  tones  were  so  full  of  ten- 
derness, and  a  restraining  modesty. — The  men,  for  what 
I  have  observed,  speak  seldomer. 

Once  only,  and  it  was  some  years  ago,  I  witnessed  a 
sample  of  the  old  Foxian  orgasm.  It  was  a  man  of  giant  30 
stature,  who,  as  Wordsworth  phrases  it,  might  have 
danced  "from  head  to  foot  equipt  in  iron  mail."  His 
frame  was  of  iron  too.  But  he  was  malleable.  I  saw 
him  shake  all  over  with  the  spirit— I  dare  not  say,  of 


58  Charles  Lamb 

delusion.  The  strivings  of  the  outer  man  were  unutter- 
able— he  seemed  not  to  speak,  but  to  be  spoken  from.  I 
saw  the  strong  man  bowed  down,  and  his  knees  to  fail — 
his  joints  all  seemed  loosening— it  was  a  figure  to  set  off 
5  against  Paul  Preaching — the  words  he  uttered  were  few, 
and  sound — he  was  evidently  resisting  his  will — keeping 
down  his  own  word-wisdom  with  more  mighty  effort, 
than  the  world's  orators  strain  for  theirs.  "He  had  been 
a  Wit  in  his  youth,"  he  told  us,  with  expressions  of  a 

10  sober  remorse.  And  it  was  not  till  long  after  the  impres- 
sion had  begun  to  wear  away,  that  I  was  enabled,  with 
something  like  a  smile,  to  recall  the  striking  incongruity 
of  the  confession — understanding  the  term  in  its  worldly 
acceptation — with  the  frame  and  physiognomy  of  the 

15  person  before  me.  His  brow  would  have  scared  away 
the  Levites — the  Jocos  Risus-que — faster  than  the  Loves 
fled  the  face  of  Dis  at  Enna.  By  wit,  even  in  his  youth, 
I  will  be  sworn  he  understood  something  far  within  the 
limits  of  an  allowable  liberty. 

20  IMore  frequently  the  Meeting  is  broken  up  without  a 
word  having  been  spoken.  But  the  mind  has  been  fed. 
You  go  away  with  a  sermon,  not  made  with  hands.  You 
have  been  in  the  milder  caverns  of  Trophonius;  or  as  in 
some  den,  where  that  fiercest  and  savagest  of  all  wild 

25  creatures,  the  Tongue,  that  unruly  member,  has 
strangely  lain  tied  up  and  captive.  You  have  bathed 
with  stillness. — O  when  the  spirit  is  sore  fettered,  even 
tired  to  sickness  of  the  janglings,  and  nonsense  noises  of 
the  world,  what  a  balm  and  a  solace  it  is,  to  go  and  seat 

30  yourself  for  a  quiet  half  hour,  upon  some  undisputed 
corner  of  a  bench,  among  the  gentle  Quakers! 

Their  garb  and  stillness  conjoined,,  present  a  uniform- 
ity, tranquil  and  herd-Hke — as  in  the  pasture — "forty 
feeding  like  one." — 


A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig  59 

The  very  garments  of  a  Quaker  seem  incapable  of 
receiving  a  soil;  and  cleanliness  in  them  to  be  something 
more  than  the  absence  of  its  contrary.  Every  Quakeress 
is  a  lily;  and  when  they  come  up  in  bands  to  their 
Whitsun-conferences,  whitening  the  easterly  streets  of  5 
the  metropolis,  from  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
they  show  like  troops  of  the  Shining  Ones. 

A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG 

Mankind,   says   a   Chinese   manuscript,    which   my 
friend  M.  was  obliging  enough  to  read  and  explain  to  me, 
for  the  first  seventy  thousand  ages  ate  their  meat  raw,  10 
clawing  or  biting  it  from  the  living  animal,  just  as  they 
do  in  Abyssinia  to  this  day.     This  period  is  not  obscurely 
hinted  at  by  their  great  Confucius  in  the  second  chapter  of 
his  Mundane  Mutations,  where  he  designates  a  kind  of 
golden  age  by  the  term  Cho-fang,  literally  "the  Cook's  15 
holiday."     The  manuscript  goes  on  to  say,  that  the  art 
of  roasting,  or  rather  broiling  (which  I  take  to  be  the 
elder  brother)  was  accidentally  discovered  in  the  manner 
following.     The  swine-herd,  Ho-ti,  having  gone  out  into 
the  woods  one  morning,  as  his  manner  was,  to  collect  20 
mast  for  his  hogs,  left  his  cottage  in  the  care  of  his  eldest 
son  Bo-bo,  a  great  lubberly  boy,  who  being  fond  of  play- 
ing with  fire,  as  younkers  of  his  age  commonly  are,  let 
some  sparks  escape  into  a  bundle  of  straw,  which  kindling 
quickly,   spread   the   conflagration  over  every  part  of  25 
their  poor  mansion,  till  it  was  reduced  to  ashes.     To- 
gether with  the  cottage  (a  sorry  antediluvian  make-shift 
of  a  building,  you  may  think  it),  what  was  of  much  more 
importance,  a  fine  litter  of  new-farrowed  pigs,  no  less 
than  nine  in  number,  perished.     China  pigs  have  been  30 
esteemed  a  luxury  all  over  the  East  from  the  remotest 


6o  Charles  Lamb 

periods  that  we  read  of.  Bo-bo  was  in  utmost  consterna- 
tion, as  you  may  think,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  the 
tenement,  which  his  father  and  he  could  easily  build  up 
again  with  a  few  dry  branches,  and  the  labor  of  an  hour 
5  or  two,  at  any  time,  as  for  the  loss  of  the  pigs.  While  he 
was  thinking  what  he  should  say  to  his  father,  and  wring- 
ing his  hands  over  the  smoking  remnants  of  one  of  those 
untimely  sufferers,  an  odor  assailed  his  nostrils,  unlike 
any  scent  which  he  had  before  experienced.     What  could 

loit  proceed  from? — not  from  the  burnt  cottage — he  had 
smelt  that  smell  before — indeed  this  was  by  no  means 
the  first  accident  of  the  kind  which  had  occurred  through 
the  negligence  of  this  unlucky  young  fire-brand.  Much 
less  did  it  resemble  that  of  any  known  herb,  weed,  or 

15  flower.  A  premonitory  moistening  at  the  same  time 
overflowed  his  netherlip.  He  knew  not  what  to  think.  He 
next  stooped  down  to  feel  the  pig,  if  there  were  any  signs 
of  life  in  it.  He  burnt  his  fingers,  and  to  cool  them  he 
applied  them  in  his  booby  fashion  to  his  mouth.     Some  of 

20  the  crumbs  of  the  scorched  skin  had  come  away  with  his 
fingers,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  (in  the  world's 
life  indeed,  for  before  him  no  man  had  known  it)  he  tasted 
— crackling!  Again  he  felt  and  fumbled  at  the  pig.  It 
did  not  burn  him  so  much  now,  still  he  licked  his  fingers 

25  from  a  sort  of  habit.  The  truth  at  length  broke  into  his 
slow  understanding,  that  it  was  the  pig  that  smelt  so, 
and  the  i)ig  that  tasted  so  delicious;  and,  surrendering 
himself  up  to  the  newborn  pleasure,  he  fell  to  tearing 
up  whole  handfuls  of  the  scorched  skin  with  the  flesh 

30  next  it,  and  was  cramming  it  down  his  throat  in  his 
beastly  fashion,  when  his  sire  entered  amid  the  smoking 
rafters,  armed  with  retributory  cudgel,  and  finding  how 
affairs  stood,  began  to  rain  blows  upon  the  young  rogue's 
shoulders,  as  thick  as  hailstones,  which  Bo-bo  heeded  not 


A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig  6i 

any  more  than  if  they  had  been  flies.  The  tickling 
pleasure,  which  he  experienced  in  his  lower  regions,  had 
rendered  him  quite  callous  to  any  inconveniences  he 
might  feel  in  those  remote  quarters.  His  father  might  lay 
on,  but  he  could  not  beat  him  from  his  pig,  till  he  had  5 
fairly  made  an  end  of  it,  when,  becoming  a  little  more 
sensible  of  his  situation,  something  like  the  following 
dialogue  ensued. 

"You  graceless  whelp,  what  have  you  got  there  devour- 
ing?    Is  it  not  enough  that  you  have  burnt  me  down  10 
three  houses  with  your  dog's  tricks,  and  be  hanged  to  you, 
but  you  must  be  eating  fire,  and  I  know  not  what — what 
have  you  got  there,  I  say?" 

"0,  father,  the  pig,  the  pig,  do  come  and  taste  how  nice 
the  burnt  pig  eats."  iS 

The  ears  of  Ho-ti  tingled  with  horror.  He  cursed  his 
son,  and  he  cursed  himself  that  ever  he  should  beget  a 
son  that  should  eat  burnt  pig. 

Bo-bo,  whose  scent  was  wonderfully  sharpened  since 
morning,  soon  raked  out  another  pig,  and  fairly  rending  20 
it  asunder,  thrust  the  lesser  half  by  main  force  into  the 
fists  of  Ho-ti,  still  shouting  out  "Eat,  eat,  eat  the 
burnt  pig,  father,  only  taste — O  Lord," — with  such-like 
barbarous  ejaculations,  cramming  all  the  while  as  if  he 
would  choke.  25 

Ho-ti  trembled  every  joint  while  he  grasped  the 
abominable  thing,  wavering  whether  he  should  not  put  his 
son  to  death  for  an  unnatural  young  monster,  when  the 
crackling  scorching  his  fingers,  as  it  had  done  his  son's, 
and  applying  the  same  remedy  to  them,  he  in  his  turn  30 
tasted  some  of  its  flavor,  which,  make  what  sour  mouths 
he  would  for  a  pretence,  proved  not  altogether  displeasing 
to  him.  In  conclusion  (for  the  manuscript  here  is  a  little 
tedious)  both  father  and  son  fairly  sat  down  to  the  mess, 


62  Charles  Lamb 

and   never  left   off   till   they  had   dispatched   all   that 
remained  of  the  litter. 

Bo-bo  was  strictly  enjoined  not  to  let  the  secret  escape, 
for  the  neighbors  would  certainly  have  stoned  them  for  a 
5  couple  of  abominable  wretches,  who  could  think  of  im- 
proving upon  the  good  meat  which  God  had  sent  them. 
Nevertheless,  strange  stories  got  about.  It  was  observed 
that  Ho-ti's  cottage  was  burnt  down  now  more  frequently 
than  ever.     Nothing  but  fires  from  this  time  forward. 

lo  Some  would  break  out  in  broad  day,  others  in  the  night- 
time. As  often  as  the  sow  farrowed,  so  sure  was  the  house 
of  Ho-ti  to  be  in  a  blaze;  and  Ho-ti  himself,  which  was 
the  more  remarkable,  instead  of  chastising  his  son,  seemed 
to  grow  more  indulgent  to  him  than  ever.     At  length 

15  they  were  watched,  the  terrible  mystery  discovered,  and 
father  and  son  summoned  to  take  their  trial  at  Pckin, 
then  an  inconsiderable  assize  town.  Evidence  was  given, 
the  obnoxious  food  itself  produced  in  court,  and  verdict 
about  to  be  pronounced,  when  the  foreman  of  the  jury 

zo  begged  that  some  of  the  burnt  pig,  of  which  the  culprits 
stood  accused,  might  be  handed  into  the  box.  He  han- 
dled it,  and  they  all  handled  it,  and  burning  their  fingers, 
as  Bo-bo  and  his  father  had  done  before  them,  and  nature 
prompting  to  each  of  them  the  same  remedy,  against  the 

25  face  of  all  the  facts,  and  the  clearest  charge  which  judge 
had  ever  given — to  the  surprise  of  the  whole  court, 
townsfolk,  strangers,  reporters,  and  all  present — without 
leaving  the  box,  or  any  manner  of  consultation  whatever, 
they  brought  in  a  simultaneous  verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 

30  The  judge,  who  was  a  shrewd  fellow,  winked  at  the 
manifest  inicjuity  of  the  decision;  and,  when  the  court  was 
dismissed,  went  privily,  and  bought  up  all  the  pigs  that 
could  be  had  for  love  or  mo-ney.  In  a  few  days  his  Lord- 
ship's town  house  was  observed  to  be  on  fire.     The  thin^ 


A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig  63 

took  wing,  and  now  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  fires 
in  every  direction.  Fuel  and  pigs  grew  enormously  dear 
all  over  tlie  district.  The  insurance  offices  one  and  all 
shut  up  shop.  People  built  slighter  and  slighter  every 
day,  until  it  was  feared  that  the  very  science  of  architec-  5 
ture  would  in  no  long  time  be  lost  to  the  world.  Thus 
this  custom  of  firing  houses  continued,  till  in  process  of 
time,  says  my  manuscript,  a  sage  arose,  like  our  Locke, 
who  made  a  discovery,  that  the  flesh  of  swine,  or  indeed 
of  any  other  animal,  might  be  cooked  {burnt,  as  they  10 
called  it)  without  the  necessity  of  consuming  a  whole 
house  to  dress  it.  Then  first  began  the  rude  form  of  a 
gridiron.  Roasting  by  the  string,  or  spit,  came  in  a 
century  or  two  later,  I  forget  in  whose  dynasty.  By 
such  slow  degrees,  concludes  the  manuscript,  do  the  15 
most  useful,  and  seemingly  the  most  obvious  arts,  make 
their  way  among  mankind. — • — ■ 

Without  placing  too  implicit  faith  in  the  account  above 
given,  it  must  be  agreed,  that  if  a  worthy  pretext  for  so 
dangerous  an  experiment  as  setting  houses  on  fire  (espe-  20 
cially  in  these  days)  could  be  assigned  in  favor  of  any 
culinary  object,  that  pretext  and  excuse  might  be  found 

in  ROAST  PIG. 

Of  all  the  delicacies  in  the  whole  mundus  edibilis,  I  will 
maintain  it  to  be  the  most  delicate — princeps  obsoniorum.  25 

I  speak  not  of  your  grown  porkers — things  between  pig 
and  pork — those  hobbydehoys — but  a  young  and  tender 
suckling — under  a  moon  old — 'guiltless  as  yet  of  the  sty — • 
with  no  original  speck  of  the  amor  immunditicB,  the  he- 
reditary failing  of  the  first  parent,  yet  manifest — his  voice  30 
as  yet  not  broken,  but  something  between  a  childish 
treble,  and  a  grumble — the  mild  forerunner,  or  prcelu- 
dmm,  of  a  grunt. 

He  must  be  roasted,     I  am  not  ignorant  that  our  ances- 


64  Charles  Lamb 

tors  ate  them  seethed,  or  boiled — but  what  a  sacrifice 
of  the  exterior  tegument! 

There  is  no  flavor  comparable,  I  will  contend,  to  that 
of  the  crisp,  tawny,  well-watched,  not  over-roasted,  crack- 

5  ling,  as  it  is  well  called — 'the  very  teeth  are  invited  to 
their  share  of  the  pleasure  at  this  banquet  in  overcom- 
ing the  coy,  brittle  resistance — with  the  adhesive  oleagi- 
nous— O  call  it  not  fat — but  an  indefinable  sweetness 
growing   up  to  it — the  tender  blossoming  of  fat — fat 

10  cropped  in  the  bud — 'taken  in  the  shoot — ^in  the  first 
innocence — the  cream  and  quintessence  of  the  child- 
pig's  yet  pure  food the  lean,  no  lean,  but  a  kind 

of  animal  manna — or,  rather,  fat  and  lean  (if  it  must  be 
so)  so  blended  and  running  into  each  other,  that  both 

15  together  make  but  one  ambrosian  result,  or  common 
substance. 

Behold  him,  while  he  is  doing — it  seemeth  rather  a 
refreshing  warmth,  than  a  scorching  heat,  that  he  is  so 
passive  to.     How  equably  he  twirleth  round  the  string! — • 

20  Now  he  is  just  done.  To  see  the  extreme  sensibility  of 
that  tender  age,  he  hath  wept  out  his  pretty  eyes — ■ 
radiant  jellies — shooting  stars — 

See  him  in  the  dish,  his  second  cradle,  how  meek  he 
lieth! — wouldst  thou  have  had  this  innocent  grow  up  to 

25  the  grossness  and  indocility  which  too  often  accompany 
maturer  swinehood?  Ten  to  one  he  would  have  proved 
a  glutton,  a  sloven,  an  obstinate,  disagreeable  animal- 
wallowing  in  all  manner  of  filthy  conversation — from 
these  sins  he  is  happily  snatched  away — ■ 

30  Ere  sin  could  blight,  or  sorrow  fade, 

Death  came  with  timely  care — 

his  memory  is  odoriferous — -no  clown  curseth,  while  his 
stomach  half  rejecteth,  the  rank  bacon — -no  coalheaver 


A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig  65 

bolteth  him  in  reeking  sausages — he  hath  a  fair  sep- 
ulcher  in  the  grateful  stomach  of  the  judicious  epicure 
— and  for  such  a  tomb  might  be  content  to  die. 

He  is  the  best  of  Sapors.  Pine-apple  is  great.  She  is 
indeed  almost  too  transcendent — a  delight,  if  not  sinful,  5 
yet  so  Hke  to  sinning,  that  really  a  tender-conscienced 
person  would  do  well  to  pause — too  ravishing  for  mortal 
taste,  she  woundeth  and  excoriateth  the  lips  that 
approach  her — like  lovers'  kisses,  she  biteth — she  is  a 
pleasure  bordering  on  pain  from  the  fierceness  and  in-  10 
sanity  of  her  relish — but  she  stoppeth  at  the  palate- 
she  meddleth  not  with  the  appetite — and  the  coarsest 
hunger  might  barter  her  consistently  for  a  mutton 
chop. 

Pig — let  me  speak  his  praise — is  no  less  provocative  of  15 
the  appetite,  than  he  is  satisfactory  to  the  criticalness 
of  the  censorious  palate.     The  strong  man  may  batten 
on  him,  and  weakling  refuseth  not  his  mild  juices. 

Unlike  to  mankind's  mixed  characters,  a  bundle  of 
virtues  and  vices,  inexplicably  intertwisted,  and  not  to  2c 
be  unraveled  without  hazard,  he  is — ^good  throughout. 
No  part  of  him  is  better  or  worse  than  another.  He 
helpeth,  as  far  as  his  little  means  extend,  all  around.  He 
is  the  least  envious  of  banquets.  He  is  all  neighbors' 
fare.  -25 

I  am  one  of  those,  who  freely  and  ungrudgingly  im- 
part a  share  of  the  good  things  of  this  life  which  fall  to 
their  lot  (few  as  mine  are  in  this  kind)  to  a  friend.  I 
protest  I  take  as  great  an  interest  in  my  friend's  pleas- 
ures, his  relishes,  and  proper  satisfactions,  as  in  mine  30 
own.  "Presents,"  I  often  say,  "endear  Absents." 
Hares,  pheasants,  partridges,  snipes,  barn-door  chickens 
(those  "tame  villatic  fowl"),  capons,  plovers,  brawn, 
barrels  of  oysters,  I  dispense  as  freely  as  I  receive  them. 


66  Charles  Lamb 

I  love  to  taste  them,  as  it  were,  upon  the  tongue  of 
my  friend.  But  a  stop  must  be  put  somewhere. 
One  would  not,  like  Lear,  "give  everything."  I  make 
my  stand  upon  pig.  Methinks  it  is  an  ingratitude  to  the 
5  Giver  of  all  good  flavors,  to  extra-domiciliate,  or  send 
out  of  the  house,  slightingly  (under  pretext  of  friend- 
ship, or  I  know  not  what)  a  blessing  so  particularly 
adapted,  predestined,  I  may  say,  to  my  individual 
palate — It  argues  an  insensibility. 

lo  I  remember  a  touch  of  conscience  in  this  kind  at 
school.  My  good  old  aunt,  who  never  parted  from  me 
at  the  end  of  a  holiday  without  stuffing  a  sweetmeat,  or 
some  nice  thing,  into  my  pocket,  had  dismissed  me  one 
evening  with  a  smoking  plum-cake,  fresh  from  the  oven. 

15  In  my  way  to  school  (it  was  over  London  Bridge)  a 
grey-headed  old  beggar  saluted  me  (I  have  no  doubt  at 
this  time  of  day  that  he  was  a  counterfeit).  I  had  no 
pence  to  console  him  with,  and  in  the  vanity  of  self- 
denial,  and  the  very  coxcombry  of  charity,  school-boy- 

20  like,  I  made  him  a  present  of — the  whole  cake!  I  walked 
on  a  little,  buoyed  up,  as  one  is  on  such  occasions,  with 
a  sweet  soothing  of  self-satisfaction;  but  before  I  had 
got  to  the  end  of  the  bridge,  my  better  feelings  returned, 
and  I  burst  into  tears,  thinking  how  ungrateful  I  had 

25  been  to  my  good  aunt,  to  go  and  give  her  good  gift  away 
to  a  stranger,  that  I  had  never  seen  before,  and  who 
might  be  a  bad  man  for  aught  I  knew;  and  then  I  thought 
of  the  pleasure  my  aunt  would  be  taking  in  thinking  that 
I — I  myself,  and  not  another — would  eat  her  nice  cake — 

30  and  what  should  I  say  to  her  the  next  time  I  saw  her — 
how  naughty  I  was  to  part  with  her  pretty  present — ■ 
and  the  odor  of  that  spicy  cake  came  back  upon  my 
recollection,  and  the  pleasure  and  the  curiosity  I  had 
taken  in  seeing  her  make  it,  and  her  joy  when  she  sent  it 


A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig  6)'J 

to  the  oven,  and  how  disappointed  she  would  feel  that  I 
had  never  had  a  bit  of  it  in  my  mouth  at  last — and  I 
blamed  my  impertinent  spirit  of  alms-giving,  and  out-of- 
place  hypocrisy  of  goodness,  and  above  all  I  wished  never 
to  see  the  face  again  of  that  insidious,  good-for-nothing,  5 
old  grey  impostor. 

Our  ancestors  were  nice  in  their  method  of  sacrificing 
these  tender  victims.  We  read  of  pigs  whipt  to  death 
with  something  of  a  shock,  as  we  hear  of  any  other  obso- 
lete custom.  The  age  of  discipline  is  gone  by,  or  it  10 
would  be  curious  to  inquire  (in  a  philosophical  light 
merely)  what  effect  this  process  might  have  toward 
intenerating  and  dulcifying  a  substance,  naturally  so 
mild  and  dulcet  as  the  flesh  of  young  pigs.  It  looks 
like  refining  a  violet.  Yet  we  should  be  cautious,  while  15 
we  condemn  the  inhumanity,  how  we  censure  the  wisdom 
of  the  practice.     It  might  impart  a  gusto — ■ 

I  remember  an  hypothesis,  argued  upon  by  the  young 
students,  when  I  was  at  St.  Omer's,  and  maintained  with 
much  learning  and  pleasantry  on  both  sides,  "Whether,  20 
supposing  that  the  flavor  of  a  pig  who  obtained  his  death 
by  whipping  {per  flagellationem  extremam)  superadded  a 
pleasure  upon  the  palate  of  a  man  more  intense  than  any 
possible  suffering  we  can  conceive  in  the  animal,  is  man 
justified  in  using  that  method  of  putting  the  animal  to  25 
death?"     I  forget  the  decision. 

His  sauce  should  be  considered.  Decidedly,  a  few 
bread  crumbs,  done  up  with  his  liver  and  brains,  and  a 
dash  of  mild  sage.  But,  banish,  dear  Mrs.  Cook,  I  be- 
seech you,  the  whole  onion  tribe.  Barbecue  your  whole  30 
hogs  to  your  palate,  steep  them  in  shalots,  stuff  them  out 
with  plantations  of  the  rank  and  guilty  gariic;  you  can- 
not poison  them,  or  make  them  stronger  than  they  are — 
but  consider,  he  is  a  weakling — a  flower. 


68  Charles  Lamb 

DREAM  CHILDREN 

Children  love  to  listen  to  stones  about  their  elders, 
when  they  were  children;  to  stretch  their  imagination  to 
the  conception  of  a  traditionary  great-uncle  or  grandame, 
whom  they  never  saw.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that  my  little 
5  ones  crept  about  me  the  other  evening  to  hear  about  their 
great-grandmother  Field,  who  lived  in  a  great  house  in 
Norfolk  (a  hundred  times  bigger  than  that  in  which  they 
and  papa  lived)  which  had  been  the  scene — so  at  least  it 
was  generally  believed  in  that  part  of  the  country — of  the 

lo  tragic  incidents  which  they  had  lately  become  familiar 
with  from  the  ballad  of  the  Children  in  the  Wood.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  the  whole  story  of  the  children  and  their 
cruel  uncle  was  to  be  seen  fairly  carved  out  in  wood  upon 
the  chimney-piece  of  the  great  hall,  the  whole  story  down 

15  to  the  Robin  Redbreasts,  till  a  foolish  rich  person  pulled 
it  down  to  set  up  a  marble  one  of  modern  invention  in  its 
stead,  with  no  story  upon  it.  Here  Alice  put  out  one  of 
her  dear  mother's  looks,  too  tender  to  be  called  upbraid- 
ing.    Then  I  went  on  to  say,  how  religious  and  how  good 

20  their  great-grandmother  Field  was,  how  beloved  and 
respected  by  everybody,  though  she  was  not  indeed  the 
mistress  of  this  great  house,  but  had  only  the  charge  of  it 
(and  yet  in  some  respects  she  might  be  said  to  be  the 
mistress  of  it  too)  committed  to  her  by  the  owner,  who 

25  preferred  living  in  a  newer  and  more  fashionable  mansion 
which  he  had  purchased  somewhere  in  the  adjoining 
county;  but  still  she  lived  in  it  in  a  manner  as  if  it  had 
been  her  own,  and  kejit  up  the  dignity  of  the  great  house 
in  a  sort  while  she  lived,  which  afterward  came  to  decay, 

30  and  was  nearly  pulled  down,  and  all  its  old  ornaments 
stripped  and  carried  away  to  the  owner's  other  house, 
where  they  were  set  up.  and  looked  as  awkward  as  if 


Dream  Children  69 

some  one  were  to  carry  away  the  old  tombs  they  had  seen 
lately  at  the  Abbey,  and  stick  them  up  in  Lady  C.'s 
tawdry  gilt  drawing-room.  Here  John  smiled,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "that  would  be  foolish  indeed."  And  then  I 
told  how,  when  she  came  to  die,  her  funeral  was  attended  5 
by  a  concourse  of  all  the  poor,  and  some  of  the  gentry  too, 
of  the  neighborhood  for  many  miles  round,  to  show  their 
respect  for  her  memory,  because  she  had  been  such  a  good 
and  religious  woman;  so  good  indeed  that  she  knew  all 
the  Psaltery  by  heart,  ay,  and  a  great  part  of  the  Testa-  10 
ment  besides.  Here  little  Alice  spread  her  hands.  Then 
I  told  what  a  tall,  upright,  graceful  person  their  great- 
grandmother  Field  once  was;  and  how  in  her  youth  she 
was  esteemed  the  best  dancer — here  Alice's  little  right 
foot  played  an  involuntary  movement,  till  upon  my  look-  15 
ing  grave,  it  desisted — the  best  dancer,  I  was  saying,  in 
the  county,  till  a  cruel  disease,  called  a  cancer,  came,  and 
bowed  her  down  with  pain;  but  it  could  never  bend  her 
good  spirits,  or  make  them  stoop,  but  they  were  still 
upright,  because  she  was  so  good  and  religious.  Then  I  20 
told  how  she  was  used  to  sleep  by  herself  in  a  lone  cham- 
ber of  the  great  lone  house;  and  how  she  believed  that  an 
apparition  of  two  infants  was  to  be  seen  at  midnight 
gliding  up  and  down  the  great  staircase  near  where  she 
slept,  but  she  said  "those  innocents  would  do  her  no  25 
harm  ";  and  how  frightened  I  used  to  be,  though  in  those 
days  I  had  my  maid  to  sleep  with  me,  because  I  was  never 
half  so  good  or  religious  as  she — and  yet  I  never  saw  the 
infants.  Here  John  expanded  all  his  eyebrows  and  tried 
to  look  courageous.  Then  I  told  how  good  she  was  to  all  30 
her  grand-children,  having  us  to  the  great  house  in  the 
holydays,  where  I  in  particular  used  to  spend  many  hours 
by  myself,  in  gazing  upon  the  old  busts  of  the  Twelve 
Caesars,  that  had  been  Emperors  of  Rome,  till  the  old 


70  Charles  Lamb 

marble  heads  would  seem  to  live  again,  or  I  to  be  turned 
into  marble  with  them;  how  I  never  could  be  tired  with 
roaming  about  that  huge  mansion,  with  its  vast  einpty 
rooms,  with  their  worn-out  hangings,  fluttering  tapestry, 
5  and  carved  oaken  panels,  with  the  gilding  almost  rubbed 
out — 'Sometimes  in  the  spacious  old-fashioned  gardens, 
which  I  had  almost  to  myself,  unless  when  now  and  then  a 
solitary  gardening  man  would  cross  me — and  how  the 
nectarines  and  peaches  hung  upon  the  walls,  without  my 

lo  ever  offering  to  pluck  them,  because  they  were  forbidden 
fruit,  unless  now  and  then — and  because  I  had  more 
pleasure  in  strolling  about  among  the  old  melancholy- 
looking  yew  trees,  or  the  firs,  and  picking  up  the  red 
berries,  and  the  fir  apples,  which  were  good  for  nothing 

15  but  to  look  at — or  in  lying  about  upon  the  fresh  grass, 
with  all  the  fine  garden  smells  around  me — or  basking  in 
the  orangery,  till  I  could  almost  fancy  myself  ripening  too 
along  with  the  oranges  and  the  limes  in  that  grateful 
warmth — or  in  watching  the  dace  that  darted  to  and  fro 

20  in  the  fish-pond,  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden,  with  here 
and  there  a  great  sulky  pike  hanging  midway  down  the 
water  in  silent  state,  as  if  it  mocked  at  their  impertinent 
friskings — I  had  more  pleasure  in  these  busy-idle  diver- 
sions than  in  all  the  sweet  flavors  of  peaches,  nectarines, 

25  oranges,  and  such  like  common  baits  of  children.  Here 
John  slily  deposited  back  upon  the  plate  a  bunch  of 
grapes,  which,  not  unobserved  by  Alice,  he  had  meditated 
dividing  with  her,  and  both  seemed  willing  to  relinquish 
them  for  the  present  as  irrelevant.     Then  in  somewhat 

30  a  more  heightened  tone,  I  told  how,  though  their  great- 
grandmother  Field  loved  all  her  grand-children,  yet  in  an 
especial  manner  she  might  be  said  to  love  their  uncle, 

John  L ,  because  he  was  so  handsome  and  spirited  a 

youth,  and  a  king  to  the  rest  of  us;  and,  instead  of  moping 


Dream  Children  71 

about  in  solitary  corners,  like  some  of  us,  he  would  mount 
the  most  mettlesome  horse  he  could  get,  when  but  an  imp 
no  bigger  than  themselves,  and  make  it  carry  him  half 
over  the  county  in  a  morning,  and  join  the  hunters  when 
there  were  any  out — and  yet  he  loved  the  old  great  house    s 
and  gardens  too,  but  had  too  much  spirit  to  be  always 
pent  up  within  their  boundaries — and  how  their  uncle 
grew  up  to  man's  estate  as  brave  as  he  was  handsome,  to 
the  admiration  of  everybody,  but  of  their  great-grand- 
mother  Field  most  especially;  and  how  he  used  to  carry  ic 
me  upon  his  back  when  I  was  a  lame-footed  boy — for  he 
was  a  good  bit  older  than  me — many  a  mile  when  I  could 
not  walk  for  pain; — and  how  in  after  life  he  became  lame- 
footed  too,  and  I  did  not  always  (I  fear)  make  allowances 
enough  for  him  when  he  was  impatient,  and  in  pain,  nor  15 
remember  sufficiently  how  considerate  he  had  been  to 
me  when  I  was  lame-footed;  and  how  when  he  died, 
though  he  had  not  been  dead  an  hour,  it  seemed  as  if  he 
had  died  a  great  while  ago,  such  a  distance  there  is 
betwixt  life  and  death;  and  how  I  bore  his  death  as  I  20 
thought  pretty  well  at  first,  but  afterward  it  haunted  and 
haunted  me;  and  though  I  did  not  cry  or  take  it  to  heart 
as  some  do,  and  as  I  think  he  would  have  done  if  I  had 
died,  yet  I  missed  him  all  day  long,  and  knew  not  till  then 
how  much  I  had  loved  him.     I  missed  his  kindness,  and  25 
I  missed  his  crossness,  and  wished  him  to  be  alive  again, 
to  be  quarreling  with  him  (for  we  quarreled  sometimes), 
rather  than  not  have  him  again,  and  was  as  uneasy 
without  him,  as  he  their  poor  uncle  must  have  been  when 
the  doctor  took  off  his  limb.     Here  the  children  fell  a  30 
crying,  and  asked  if  their  little  mourning  which  they  had 
on  was  not  for  uncle  John,  and  they  looked  up,  and  prayed 
me  not  to  go  on  about  their  uncle,  but  to  tell  them  some 
stories  about  their  pretty  dead  mother.     Then  I  told  how 


72  Charles  Lamb 

for  seven  long  years,  in  hope  sometimes,  sometimes  in 
despair,   yet  persisting  ever,   I   courted  the  fair  Alice 

W 'n;  and,  as  much  as  children  could  understand,  I 

explained  to  them  what  coyness,  and  difficulty,  and  denial 
5  meant  in  maidens — when  suddenly,  turning  to  Alice,  the 
soul  of  the  first  Alice  looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a 
reality  of  re-presentment,  that  I  became  in  doubt  which 
of  them  stood  there  before  me,  or  whose  that  bright  hair 
was;  and  while  I  stood  gazing,  both  the  children  gradu- 

lo  ally  grew  fainter  to  my  view,  receding,  and  still  receding 
till  nothing  at  last  but  two  mournful  features  were  seen  in 
the  uttermost  distance,  which,  without  speech,  strangely 
impressed  upon  me  the  effects  of  speech:  "We  are  not  of 
Alice,  nor  of  thee,  nor  are  we  children  at  all.     The 

15  children  of  Alice  call  Bartrum  father.  We  are  nothing; 
less  than  nothing,  and  dreams.  We  are  only  what  might 
have  been,  and  must  wait  upon  the  tedious  shores  of 
Lethe  millions  of  ages  before  we  have  existence,  and  a 
name" — and    immediately    awaking,    I    found    myself 

20  quietly  seated  in  my  bachelor  armchair,  where  I  had  fal- 
len asleep,  with  the  faithful  Bridget  unchanged  by  my 
side — but  John  L.  (or  James  Elia)  was  gone  forever. 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

MY   FIRST   ACQUAINTANCE   WITH   POETS 

My  father  was  a  Dissenting  minister,  at  Wem,  in 
Shropshire;  and  in  the  year  1798  (the  figures  that  com- 
pose the  date  are  to  me  Hke  the  "  dreaded  name  of  Demo- 
gorgon")  Mr.  Coleridge  came  to  Shrewsbury,  to  suc- 
ceed Mr.  Rowe  in  the  spiritual  charge  of  a  Unitarian  5 
congregation  there.  He  did  not  come  till  late  on  the 
Saturday  afternoon  before  he  was  to  preach;  and  Mr. 
Rowe,  who  himself  went  down  to  the  coach,  in  a  state 
of  anxiety  and  expectation,  to  look  for  the  arrival  of 
his  successor,  could  find  no  one  at  all  answering  the  de-  10 
scription  but  a  round-faced  man,  in  a  short  black  coat 
(like  a  shooting  jacket)  which  hardly  seemed  to  have 
been  made  for  him,  but  who  seemed  to  be  talking  at  a 
great  rate  to  his  fellow  passengers.  Mr.  Rowe  had 
scarce  returned  to  give  an  account  of  his  disappointment  15 
when  the  round-faced  man  in  black  entered,  and  dissi- 
pated all  doubts  on  the  subject  by  beginning  to  talk. 
He  did  not  cease  while  he  stayed;  nor  has  he  since,  that 
I  know  of.  He  held  the  good  town  of  Shrewsbury  in 
delightful  suspense  for  three  weeks  that  he  remained  20 
there,  "fluttering  the  proud  Salopians,  like  an  eagle  in 
a  dove-cote";  and  the  Welsh  mountains  that  skirt  the 
horizon  with  their  tempestuous  confusion,  agree  to  have 
heard  no  such  mystic  sounds  since  the  days  of 

"High-born  Hoel's  harp  or  soft  Llewellyn's  lay."  25 

73 


74  William  Hazlitt 

As  we  passed  along  between  Wem  and  Shrewsbury, 
and  I  eyed  their  blue  tops  seen  through  the  wintry 
branches,  or  the  red  rustling  leaves  of  the  sturdy  oak 
trees  by  the  road-side,  a  sound  was  in  my  ears  as  of  a 
5  Syren's  song;  I  was  stunned,  startled  with  it,  as  from  deep 
sleep;  but  I  had  no  notion  then  that  I  should  ever  be 
able  to  express  my  admiration  to  others  in  motley  im- 
agery or  quaint  allusion,  till  the  light  of  his  genius  shone 
into  my  soul  like  the  sun's  rays  glittering  in  the  puddles 
lo  of  the  road.  I  was  at  that  time  dumb,  inarticulate, 
helpless,  like  a  worm  by  the  wayside,  crushed,  bleeding, 
lifeless;  but  now,  bursting  the  deadly  bands  that  "bound 
them, 

"With  Styx  nine  times  round  them," 

15  my  ideas  float  on  winged  words,  and  as  they  expand  their 
plumes,  catch  the  golden  light  of  other  years.  My  soul 
has  indeed  remained  in  its  original  bondage,  dark,  ob- 
scure, with  longings  infinite  and  unsatisfied;  my  heart, 
shut  up  in  the  prison-house  of  this  rude  clay,  has  never 

20  found,  nor  will  it  ever  find,  a  heart  to  speak  to;  but  that 
my  understanding  also  did  not  remain  dumb  and  brutish, 
or  at  length  found  a  language  to  express  itself,  I  owe  to 
Coleridge.     But  this  is  not  to  my  purpose. 

My  father  lived  ten  miles  from  Shrewsbury,  and  was 

25  in  the  habit  of  exchanging  visits  with  Mr.  Rowe,  and 
with  Mr.  Jenkins  of  Whitchurch  (nine  miles  farther  on), 
according  to  the  custom  of  Dissenting  ministers  in  each 
other's  neighborhood.  A  line  of  communication  is  thus 
established,  by  which  the  flame  of  civil  and  religious 

30  liberty  is  kept  alive,  and  nourishes  its  smouldering  fire 
unc}uenchable,  like  the  lires  in  the  Agamemnon  of  yEschy- 
lus,  placed  at  different  stations,  that  waited  for  ten  long 
years  to  announce  with  their  blazing  pyramids  the  de- 


Aly  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        75 

struction  of  Troy.  Coleridge  had  agreed  to  come  over 
and  see  my  father,  according  to  the  courtesy  of  the 
country,  as  Mr.  Rowe's  probable  successor;  but  in  the 
meantime,  I  had  gone  to  hear  him  preach  the  Sunday 
after  his  arrival.  A  poet  and  a  philosopher  getting  up  5 
into  a  Unitarian  pulpit  to  preach  the  gospel,  was  a  ro- 
mance in  these  degenerate  days,  a  sort  of  revival  of  the 
primitive  spirit  of  Christianity,  which  was  not  to  be 
resisted. 

It  was  in  January  of  1798,  that  I  rose  one  morning  10 
before  daylight,  to  walk  ten  miles  in  the  mud,  to  hear 
this  celebrated  person  preach.     Never,  the  longest  day 

I  have  to  live,  shall  I  have  such  another  walk  as  this 
cold,  raw,  comfortless  one,  in  the  winter  of  the  year  1798. 

II  y  a  des  impressions  que  ni  le  temps  ni  les  circonstances  1 5 
peiivent  effacer.    Dusse-je  vivre  des  siecles  entiers,  le  doux 
tcjnps  de  majeunesse  ne  petit  renattre  pour  moi,ni  s^e facer 
jamais  dans  ma  memoire.     When  I  got  there,  the  organ 
was  playing  the  hundredth  Psalm,  and  when  it  was  done, 
Mr.  Coleridge  rose  and  gave  out  his  text,  "And  he  went  20 
up  into  the  mountain  to  pray,  himself,  alone.''    As  he 
gave  out  this  text,  his  voice  "rose  like  a  steam  of  rich 
distilled  perfumes,"  and  when  he  came  to  the  two  last 
words,  which  he  pronounced  loud,  deep,  and  distinct,  it 
seemed  to  me,  who  was  then  young,  as  if  the  sounds  had  25 
echoed  from  the  bottom  of  the  human  heart,  and  as  if 
that  prayer  might  have  floated  in  solemn  silence  through 
the  universe.     The  idea  of  St.  John  came  into  my  mind, 
"of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  who  had  his  loins  girt 
about,  and  whose  food  was  locusts  and  wild  honey."  30 
The  preacher  then  launched  into  his  subject,  like  an 
eagle  dallying  with  the  wind.     The  sermon  was  upon 
peace  and  war;  upon  church  and  state — not  their  alli- 
ance but  their  separation — on  the  spirit  of  the  world  and 


'^d  William  Hazlitt 

the  spirit  of  Christianity,  not  as  the  same,  but  as  opposed 
to  one  another.  He  talked  of  those  who  had  "inscribed 
the  cross  of  Christ  on  banners  dripping  with  human 
gore."  He  made  a  poetical  and  pastoral  excursion — 
S  and  to  show  the  fatal  effects  of  war,  drew  a  striking  con- 
trast between  the  simple  shepherd-boy,  driving  his  team 
afield,  or  sitting  under  the  hawthorn,  piping  to  his  flock, 
"as  though  he  should  never  be  old,"  and  the  same  poor 
country  lad,  crimped,  kidnapped,  brought  into  town, 
lo  made  drunk  at  an  alehouse,  turned  into  a  wretched 
drummer-boy,  with  his  hair  sticking  on  end  with  powder 
and  pomatum,  a  long  cue  at  his  back,  and  tricked  out 
in  the  loathsome  finery  of  the  profession  of  blood: 

"Such  were  the  notes  our  once-loved  poet  sung." 

15  And  for  myself,  I  could  not  have  been  more  delighted  if 
I  had  heard  the  music  of  the  spheres.  Poetry  and  Phi- 
losophy had  met  together.  Truth  and  Genius  had  em- 
braced, under  the  eye  and  with  the  sanction  of  Religion. 
This  was  even  beyond  my  hopes.     I  returned  home  well 

20  satisfied.  The  sun  that  was  still  laboring  pale  and  wan 
through  the  sky,  obscured  by  thick  mists,  seemed  an 
emblem  of  the  good  cause;  and  the  cold  dank  drops  of 
dew,  that  hung  half  melted  on  the  beard  of  the  thistle, 
had  something  genial  and  refreshing  in  them;  for  there 

25  was  a  spirit  of  hope  and  youth  in  all  nature,  that  turned 
everything  into  good.  The  face  of  nature  had  not  then 
the  brand  of  Jus  Divinum  on  it : 

"Like  to  that  sanguine  flower  inscrib'd  with  woe." 

On  the  Tuesday  following,  the  half-inspired  speaker 

30  came.     I  was  called  down  into  the  room  where  he  was, 

and  went  half-hoping,  half-afraid.     He  received  me  very 


M}'  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        'J'^ 

graciously,  and  I  listened  for  a  long  time  without  utter- 
ing a  word.  I  did  not  suffer  in  his  opinion  by  my  si- 
lence. "For  those  two  hours,"  he  afterward  was  pleased 
to  say,  "he  was  conversing  with  WiUiam  Hazlitt's  fore- 
head"! His  appearance  was  different  from  what  I  had 
anticipated  from  seeing  him  before.  At  a  distance,  and 
in  the  dim  light  of  the  chapel,  there  was  to  me  a  strange 
wildness  in  his  aspect,  a  dusky  obscurity,  and  I  thought 
him  pitted  with  the  smallpox.  His  complexion  was  at 
that  time  clear,  and  even  bright —  lo 

"As  are  the  children  of  yon  azure  sheen." 

His  forehead  was  broad  and  high,  light  as  if  built  of 
ivory,  with  large  projecting  eyebrows,  and  his  eyes  roll- 
ing beneath  them,  like  a  sea  with  darkened  luster.  "A 
certain  tender  bloom  his  face  o'erspread,"  a  purple  tinge  15 
as  we  see  it  in  the  pale  thoughtful  complexions  of  the 
Spanish  portrait  painters,  Murillo  and  Valasquez.  His 
mouth  was  gross,  voluptuous,  open,  eloquent;  his  chin 
good-humored  and  round;  but  his  nose,  the  rudder  of 
the  face,  the  index  of  the  will,  was  small,  feeble,  nothing  20 
— like  what  he  has  done.  It  might  seem  that  the  genius 
of  his  face  as  from  a  height  surveyed  and  projected 
him  (with  sufl&cient  capacity  and  huge  aspiration) 
into  the  world  unknown  of  thought  and  imagination, 
with  nothing  to  support  or  guide  his  veering  purpose,  25 
as  if  Columbus  had  launched  his  adventurous  course  for 
the  New  World  in  a  scallop,  without  oars  or  compass. 
So,  at  least,  I  comment  on  it  after  the  event.  Cole- 
ridge, in  his  person,  was  rather  above  the  common  size, 
inclining  to  the  corpulent,  or  like  Lord  Hamlet,  "some-  30 
what  fat  and  pursy."  His  hair  (now,  alas!  gray)  was 
then  black  and  glossy  as  the  raven's,  and  fell  in  smooth 
masses  over  his  forehead.     This  long  pendulous  hair  is 


78  William  Hazlitt 

peculiar  to  enthusiasts,  to  those  whose  minds  tend 
heavenward;  and  is  traditionally  inseparable  (though  of 
a  different  color)  from  the  pictures  of  Christ.  It  ought 
to  belong,  as  a  character,  to  all  who  preach  Christ  cruci- 
Sfied,  and  Coleridge  was  at  that  time  one  of  those! 

It  was  curious  to  observe  the  contrast  between  him  and 
my  father,  who  was  a  veteran  in  the  cause,  and  then  de- 
clining into  the  vale  of  years.  He  had  been  a  poor  Irish 
lad,  carefully  brought  up  by  his  parents,  and  sent  to  the 

lo  University  of  Glasgow  (where  he  studied  under  Adam 
Smith)  to  prepare  him  for  his  future  destination.  It  was 
his  mother's  proudest  wish  to  see  her  son  a  Dissenting 
minister.  So,  if  we  look  back  to  past  generations  (as 
far  as  eye  can  reach),  we  see  the  same  hopes,  fears,  wishes, 

15  followed  by  the  same  disappointments,  throbbing  in  the 
human  heart;  and  so  we  may  see  them  (if  we  look  for- 
ward) rising  up  forever,  and  disappearing,  like  vaporish 
bubbles,  in  the  human  breast!  After  being  tossed  about 
from  congregation  to  congregation  in  the  heats  of  the 

20  Unitarian  controversy,  and  squabbles  about  the  Ameri- 
can war,  he  had  been  relegated  to  an  obscure  village, 
where  he  was  to  spend  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life, 
far  from  the  only  converse  that  he  loved,  the  talk  about 
disputed  texts  of  Scripture,  and  the  cause  of  civil  and 

25  religious  liberty.  Here  he  passed  his  days,  repining, 
but  resigned,  in  the  study  of  the  Bible,  and  the  perusal 
of  the  commentators — huge  folios,  not  easily  got  through, 
one  of  which  would  outlast  a  winter!  Why  did  he  pore 
on  these  from  morn  to  night  (with  the  exception  of  a 

30  walk  in  the  fields  or  a  turn  in  the  garden  to  gather 
broccoli-plants  or  kidney  beans  of  his  own  rearing,  with 
no  small  degree  of  pride  and  pleasure)?  Here  were  "no 
figures  nor  no  fantasies" — neither  poetry  nor  philosophy 
— nothing  to  dazzle,  nothing  to  excite  modern  curiosity; 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        79 

but  to  his  lack-luster  eyes  there  appeared  within  the 
pages  of  the  ponderous,  unwieldy,  neglected  tomes,  the 
sacred  name  of  JEHOVAH  in  Hebrew  capitals:  pressed 
down  by  the  weight  of  the  style,  worn  to  the  last  fading 
thinness  of  the  understanding,  there  were  glimpses,  5 
glimmering  notions  of  the  patriarchal  wanderings,  with 
palm  trees  hovering  in  the  horizon,  and  processions  of 
camels  at  the  distance  of  three  thousand  years;  there 
was  Moses  with  the  Burning  Bush,  the  number  of  the 
Twelve  Tribes,  types,  shadows,  glosses  on  the  law  and  10 
the  prophets;  there  were  discussions  (dull  enough)  on 
the  age  of  Methuselah,  a  mighty  speculation!  there  were 
outlines,  rude  guesses  at  the  shape  of  Noah's  Ark  and  of 
the  riches  of  Solomon's  Temple;  questions  as  to  the  date 
of  the  creation,  predictions  of  the  end  of  all  things;  the  15 
great  lapses  of  time,  the  strange  mutations  of  the  globe 
we-re  unfolded  with  the  voluminous  leaf,  as  it  turned 
over;  and  though  the  soul  might  slumber  with  an  hiero- 
glyphic veil  of  inscrutable  mysteries  drawn  over  it, 
yet  it  was  in  a  slumber  ill-exchanged  for  all  the  sharp-  20 
ened  realities  of  sense,  wit,  fancy,  or  reason.  My  father's 
life  was  comparatively  a  dream;  but  it  was  a  dream  of 
infinity  and  eternity,  of  death,  the  resurrection,  and  a 
judgment  to  come! 

No  two  individuals  were  ever  more  unlike  than  were  25 
the  host  and  his  guest.  A  poet  was  to  my  father  a  sort  of 
nondescript;  yet  whatever  added  grace  to  the  Unitarian 
cause  was  to  him  welcome.  He  could  hardly  have  been 
more  surprised  or  pleased,  if  our  visitor  had  worn  Avings. 
Indeed,  his  thoughts  had  wings:  and  as  the  silken  sounds  30 
rustled  round  our  little  wainscoted  parlor,  my  father 
threw  back  his  spectacles  over  his  forehead,  his  white 
hairs  mixing  with  its  sanguine  hue;  and  a  smile  of  delight 
beamed  across  his  rugged,  cordial  face,  to  think  that 


8o  William  Hazlitt 

Truth  had  found  a  r\cw  ally  in  Fancy  !^  Besides,  Cole- 
ridge seemed  to  take  considerable  notice  of  me,  and 
that  of  itself  was  enough.  He  talked  very  familiarly,  but 
agreeably,  and  glanced  over  a  variety  of  subjects.  At 
5  dinner  time  he  grew  more  animated,  and  dilated  in  a  very 
edifying  manner  on  Mary  WoUstonecraft  and  Mackintosh. 
The  last,  he  said,  he  considered  (on  my  father's  speaking 
of  his  VindicicB  Gallicm  as  a  capital  performance)  as  a 
clever,  scholastic  man — a  master  of  the  topics — or,  as  the 

lo  ready  warehouseman  of  letters,  who  knew  exactly  where 
to  lay  his  hand  on  what  he  wanted,  though  the  goods  were 
not  his  own.  He  thought  him  no  match  for  Burke,  either 
in  style  or  matter.  Burke  was  a  metaphysician.  Mackin- 
tosh a  mere  logician.     Burke  was  an  orator  (almost  a 

15  poet)  who  reasoned  in  figures,  because  he  had  an  eye  for 
nature:  Mackintosh,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  rhetorician, 
who  had  only  an  eye  to  commonplaces.  On  this  I  ven- 
tured to  say  that  I  had  always  entertained  a  great  opinion 
of  Burke,  and  that  (as  far  as  I  could  find)  the  speaking  of 

20  him  with  contempt  might  be  made  the  test  of  a  vulgar, 
democratical  mind.  This  was  the  first  observation  I  ever 
made  to  Coleridge,  and  he  said  it  was  a  very  just  and  strik- 
ing one.  I  remember  the  leg  of  Welsh  mutton  and  the 
turnips  on   the   table   that   day  had   the   finest   flavor 

25  imaginable.  Coleridge  added  that  Mackintosh  and  Tom 
Wedgwood  (of  whom,  however,  he  spoke  highly)  had 
expressed  a  very  indifferent  opinion  of  his  friend  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  on  which  he  remarked  to  them — "He  strides 
on  so  far  before  you,  that  he  dwindles  in  the  distance!" 

30  Godwin  had  once  boasted  to  him  of  having  carried  on  an 

1  My  father  was  one  of  those  who  mistook  his  talent,  after  all. 
He  used  to  be^very  much  dissatisfied  that  I  preferred  hi?,  Letters  to 
his  Sermons.  'The  last  were  forced  and  dry;  the  first  came  naturally 
kom  him.  For  ease,  half-plays  on  words,  and  a  supine,  monkish, 
indolent  pleasantry,  I  have  never  seen  them  equalled. 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        8l 

argument  with  Mackintosh  for  three  hours  with  dubious 
success;  Coleridge  told  him — "li  there  had  been  a  man 
of  genius  in  the  room  he  would  have  settled  the  question 
in  five  minutes."  He  asked  me  if  I  had  ever  seen  Mary 
Wollstonecraf t,  and  I  said,  I  had  once  for  a  few  moments,  i 
and  that  she  seemed  to  me  to  turn  off  Godwin's  objec- 
tions to  something  she  advanced  with  quite  a  playful, 
easy  air.  He  replied,  that  "this  was  only  one  instance 
of  the  ascendency  which  people  of  imagination  exercised 
over  those  of  mere  intellect."  He  did  not  rate  Godwin  lo 
very  high^  (this  was  caprice  or  prejudice,  real  or  affected), 
but  he  had  a  great  idea  of  Mrs.  Wollstonecraf  t's  powers  of 
conversation;  none  at  all  of  her  talent  for  book-making. 
We  talked  a  little  about  Holcroft.  He  had  been  asked  if 
he  was  not  much  struck  with  him,  and  he  said,  he  thought  15 
himself  in  more  danger  of  being  struck  by  him,  I  com- 
plained that  he  would  not  let  me  get  on  at  all,  for  he 
required  a  definition  of  every  the  commonest  word, 
exclaiming,  "What  do  you  mean  by  a  sensation,  Sir? 
What  do  you  mean  by  an  idea?"  This,  Coleridge  said,  20 
was  barricading  the  road  to  truth;  it  was  setting  up  a 
turnpike-gate  at  every  step  we  took.  I  forget  a  great 
number  of  things,  many  more  than  I  remember;  but  the 
day  passed  off  pleasantly,  and  the  next  morning  Mr. 
Coleridge  was  to  return  to  Shrewsbury.  25 

When  I  came  down  to  breakfast,  I  found  that  he  had 
just  received  a  letter  from  his  friend,  T.  Wedgwood, 
making  him  an  offer  of  150/.  a  year  if  he  chose  to  waive 
his  present  pursuit,  and  devote  himself  entirely  to  the 
study  of  poetry  and  philosophy.     Coleridge  seemed  to  30 

^  He  complained  in  particular  of  the  presumption  of  his  attempt- 
ing to  establish  the  future  immortality  of  man,  "without"  (as  he 
said)  "knowing  what  Death  was  or  what  Life  was" — and  the  tone 
in  which  he  pronounced  these  two  words  seemed  to  convey  a  com- 
plete image  of  both. 


82  William  Hazlitt 

make  up  his  mind  to  close  with  this  proposal  in  the  act 
of  tying  on  one  of  his  shoes.  It  threw  an  additional  damp 
on  his  departure.  It  took  the  wayward  enthusiast  quite 
from  us  to  cast  him  into  Deva's  winding  vales,  or  by  the 
5  shores  of  old  romance.  Instead  of  living  at  ten  miles' 
distance,  of  being  the  pastor  of  a  Dissenting  congregation 
at  Shrewsbury,  he  was  henceforth  to  inhabit  the  Hill  of 
Parnassus,  to  be  a  Shepherd  on  the  Delectable  Moun- 
tains.    Alas!    I  knew  not  the  way  thither,  and  felt  very 

lo  little  gratitude  for  Mr.  Wedgwood's  bounty.  I  was 
presently  relieved  from  this  dilemma;  for  Mr.  Coleridge, 
asking  for  a  pen  and  ink,  and  going  to  a  table  to  write 
something  on  a  bit  of  card,  advanced  toward  me  with 
undulating  step,  and  giving  me  the  precious  document, 

15  said  that  that  was  his  address,  Mr.  Coleridge,  Nether 
Stowey,  Somersetshire;  and  that  he  should  be  glad  to  see 
me  there  in  a  few  weeks'  time,  and,  if  I  chose,  would  come 
half-way  to  meet  me.  I  was  not  less  surprised  than  the 
shepherd-boy  (this  simile  is  to  be  found  in  Cassandra), 

20  when  he  sees  a  thunderbolt  fall  close  at  his  feet.  I 
stammered  out  my  acknowledgements  and  acceptance 
of  this  offer  (I  thought  Mr.  Wedgwood's  annuity  a  trifle 
to  it)  as  well  as  I  could;  and  this  mighty  business  being 
settled,  the  poet-preacher  took  leave,  and  I  accompanied 

25  him  six  miles  on  the  road. 

It  was  a  fine  morning  in  the  middle  of  winter,  and  he 
talked  the  whole  way.  The  scholar  in  Chaucer  is 
described  as  going 

"sounding  on  his  way." 

30  So  Coleridge  went  on  his.  In  digressing,  in  dilating,  in 
passing  from  subject  to  subject,  he  appeared  to  me  to 
float  in  air,  to  slide  on  ice.  He  told  me  in  confidence 
(going  along)  that  he  should  have  preached  two  sermons 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets         83 

before  he  accepted  the  situation  at  Shrewsbury,  one  on 
Infant  Baptism,  the  other  on  the  Lord's  Supper,  showing 
that  he  could  not  administer  either,  which  would  have 
effectually  disqualified  him  for  the  object  in  view.  I 
observed  that  he  continually  crossed  me  on  the  way  by  5 
shifting  from  one  side  of  the  footpath  to  the  other.  This 
struck  me  as  an  odd  movement;  but  I  did  not  at  that 
time  connect  it  with  any  instability  of  purpose  or  invol- 
untary change  of  principle,  as  I  have  done  since.  He 
seemed  unable  to  keep  on  in  a  straight  line.  He  spoke  10 
slightingly  of  Hume  (whose  Essay  on  Miracles  he  said  was 
stolen  from  an  objection  started  in  one  of  South's  sermons 
— Credat  Judoeiis  A  ppella!) .  I  was  not  very  much  pleased 
at  this  account  of  Hume,  for  I  had  just  been  reading, 
with  infinite  relish,  that  completest  of  all  metaphysical  15 
chokepears,  his  Treatise  on  Hitman  Nature,  to  which  the 
Essays  in  point  of  scholastic  subtlety  and  close  reason- 
ing, are  mere  elegant  trifling,  light  summer  reading.  Cole- 
ridge even  denied  the  excellence  of  Hume's  general  style, 
which  I  think  betrayed  a  want  of  taste  or  candor.  He  20 
however  made  me  amends  by  the  manner  in  which  he 
spoke  of  Berkeley.  He  dwelt  particularly  on  his  Essay 
on  Vision  as  a  masterpiece  of  analytical  reasoning.  So 
it  undoubtedly  is.  He  was  exceedingly  angry  with  Dr. 
Johnson  for  striking  the  stone  with  his  foot,  in  allusion  to  25 
this  author's  theory  of  matter  and  spirit,  and  saying, 
"Thus  I  confute  him.  Sir."  Coleridge  drew  a  parallel 
(I  don't  know  how  he  brought  about  the  connection)  be- 
tween Bishop  Berkeley  and  Tom  Paine.  He  said  the  one 
was  an  instance  of  a  subtle,  the  other  of  an  acute  mind,  30 
than  which  no  two  things  could  be  more  distinct.  The 
one  was  a  shop-boy's  quality,  the  other  the  characteristic 
of  a  philosopher.  He  considered  Bishop  Butler  as  a  true 
philosopher,   a  profound  and   conscientious  thinker,   a 


84  William  Hazlitt 

genuine  reader  of  nature  and  his  own  mind.  He  did  not 
speak  of  his  Analogy,  but  of  his  Sermons  at  the  Rolls' 
Chapel,  of  which  I  had  never  heard.  Coleridge  somehow 
always  contrived  to  prefer  the  unknown  to  the  known.  In 
5  this  instance  he  was  right.  The  Analogy  is  c\  tissue  of 
sophistry,  of  wire-drawn,  theological  special-pleading; 
the  Sermons  (with  the  preface  to  them)  are  in  a  fine  vein 
of  deep,  matured  reflection,  a  candid  appeal  to  our  ob- 
servation of  human  nature,  without  pedantry  and  with- 

lo  out  bias.  I  told  Coleridge  I  had  written  a  few  remarks, 
and  was  sometimes  foolish  enough  to  believe  that  I  had 
made  a  discovery  on  the  same  subject  (the  Natural 
disinterestedness  of  the  Human  Mind) — and  I  tried  to 
explain  my  view  of  it  to  Coleridge,  who  listened  with 

15  great  willingness,  but  I  did  not  succeed  in  making  myself 
understood.  I  sat  down  to  the  task  shortly  afterward 
for  the  twentieth  time,  got  new  pens  and  paper,  deter- 
mined to  make  clear  work  of  it,  wrote  a  few  meager 
sentences  in  the  skeleton  style  of  a  mathematical  demon- 

20  stration,  stopped  half-way  down  the  second  page;  and, 
after  trying  in  vain  to  pump  up  any  words,  images, 
notions,  apprehensions,  facts,  or  observations,  from  that 
gulf  of  abstraction  in  which  I  had  plunged  myself  for 
four  or  five  years  preceding,  gave  up  the  attempt  as 

25  labor  in  vain,  and  shed  tears  of  helpless  despondency  on 
the  blank,  unfinished  paper.  I  can  write  fast  enough 
now.  Am  I  better  than  I  was  then?  Oh  no!  One 
truth  discovered,  one  pang  of  regret  at  not  being  able  to 
express  it,  is  better  than  all  the  fluency  and  flippancy  in 

30  the  world.  Would  that  I  could  go  back  to  what  I  then 
was!  Why  can  we  not  revive  past  times  as  we  can  revisit 
old  places?  If  I  had  the  quaint  Muse  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
to  assist  me,  I  would  write  a  Sonnet  to  the  Road  between 
Wem  and  Shrev.'sbnry,  and  immortalize  every  step  of  it 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        85 

by  some  fond  enigmatical  conceit.  I  would  swear  that 
the  very  milestones  had  ears,  and  that  Harmer-hill 
stooped  with  all  its  pines,  to  listen  to  a  poet,  as  he  passed! 
I  remember  but  one  other  topic  of  discourse  in  this  walk. 
He  mentioned  Paley,  praised  the  naturalness  and  clear-  5 
ness  of  his  style,  but  condemned  his  sentiments,  thought 
him  a  mere  time-serving  casuist,  and  said  that  "the  fact 
of  his  work  on  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy  being  made 
a  text-book  in  our  universities  was  a  disgrace  to  the 
national  character."  10 

We  parted  at  the  six-mile  stone;  and  I  returned  home- 
ward, pensive,  but  much  pleased.  I  had  met  with  unex- 
pected notice  from  a  person  whom  I  believed  to  have  been 
prejudiced  against  me.  "Kind  and  affable  to  me  had 
been  his  condescension,  and  should  be  honored  ever  with  15 
suitable  regard."  He  was  the  first  poet  I  had  known, 
and  he  certainly  answered  to  that  inspired  name.  I  had 
heard  a  great  deal  of  his  powers  of  conversation  and  was 
not  disappointed.  In  fact,  I  never  met  with  anything 
at  all  like  them,  either  before  or  since.  I  could  easily  20 
credit  the  accounts  which  were  circulated  of  his  holding 
forth  to  a  large  party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  an  evening 
or  two  before,  on  the  Berkeleian  Theory,  when  he  made 
the  whole  material  universe  look  like  a  transparency  of 
fine  words;  and  another  story  (which  I  believe  he  has  25 
somewhere  told  himself)  of  his  being  asked  to  a  party  at 
Birmingham,  of  his  smoking  tobacco  and  going  to  sleep 
after  dinner  on  a  sofa,  where  the  company  found  him,  to 
their  no  small  surprise,  which  was  increased  to  wonder 
when  he  started  up  of  a  sudden,  and  rubbing  his  eyes,  30 
looked  about  him,  and  launched  into  a  three-hours' 
description  of  the  third  heaven,  of  which  he  had  had  a 
dream,  very  different  from  Mr.  Southey's  Vision  of 
Judgment,  and  also  from  that*other  Vision  of  Judgment, 


86  William  Hazlitt 

which  Mr.  Murray,  the  Secretary  of  the  Bridge-street 
Junta,  took  into  his  especial  keeping. 

On  my  way  back  I  had  a  sound  in  my  cars — -it  was  the 
voice  of  Fancy;  I  had  a  light  before  me — it  was  the  face 

5  of  Poetry.  The  one  still  lingers  there,  the  other  has  not 
quitted  my  side!  Coleridge,  in  truth,  met  me  half-way 
on  the  ground  of  philosophy,  or  I  should  not  have  been 
won  over  to  his  imaginative  creed.  I  had  an  uneasy, 
pleasurable  sensation  all  the  time,  till  I  was  to  visit 

lohim.  During  those  months  the  chill  breath  of  winter 
gave  me  a  welcoming;  the  vernal  air  was  balm  and  in- 
spiration to  me.  The  golden  sunsets,  the  silver  star  of 
evening,  lighted  me  on  my  way  to  new  hopes  and  pros- 
pects.    /  was  to  visit  Coleridge  in  the  spring.     This  cir- 

15  cumstance  was  never  absent  from  my  thoughts,  and 
mingled  with  all  my  feelings.  I  wrote  to  him  at  the 
time  proposed,  and  received  an  answer  postponing  my 
intended  visit  for  a  week  or  two,  but  very  cordially  urg- 
ing me  to  complete  my  promise  then.     This  delay  did 

20  not  damp,  but  rather  increased  my  ardor.  In  the  mean- 
time, I  went  to  Llangollen  Vale,  by  way  of  initiating 
myself  in  the  mysteries  of  natural  scenery;  and  I  must 
say  I  was  enchanted  with  it.  I  had  been  reading  Cole- 
ridge's description  of  England  in  his  fine  Ode  on  the 

25  Departing  Year,  and  I  applied  it,  con  amore,  to  the  objects 

before  me.     That  valley  was  to  me  (in  a  manner)  the 

cradle  of  a  new  existence:  in  the  river  that  winds  through 

it,  my  spirit  was  baptized  in  the  waters  of  Helicon ! 

I  returned  home,  and  soon  after  set  out  on  my  journey 

30  with  unworn  heart,  and  untired  feet.  My  way  lay 
through  Worcester  and  Gloucester,  and  by  Upton,  where 
I  thought  of  Tom  Jones  and  the  adventure  of  the  muff. 
I  remember  getting  completely  wet  through  one  day, 
and  stopping  at  an  inn  (i  think  it  was  at  Tewkesbury) 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        87 

where  I  sat  up  all  night  to  read  Paul  and  Virginia. 
Sweet  were  the  showers  in  early  youth  that  drenched 
my  body,  and  sweet  the  drops  of  pity  that  fell  upon  the 
books  I  read!  I  recollect  a  remark  of  Coleridge's  upon 
this  very  book  that  nothing  could  show  the  gross  in-  5 
delicacy  of  French  manners  and  the  entire  corruption 
of  their  imagination  more  strongly  than  the  behavior  of 
the  heroine  in  the  last  fatal  scene,  who  turns  away  from 
a  person  on  board  the  sinking  vessel,  that  offers  to  save 
her  life,  because  he  has  thrown  off  his  clothes  to  assist  10 
him  in  swimming.  Was  this  a  time  to  think  of  such  a 
circumstance?  I  once  hinted  to  Wordsworth,  as  we 
were  sailing  in  his  boat  on  Grasmere  lake,  that  I  thought 
he  had  borrowed  the  idea  of  his  Poems  on  the  Naming  of 
Places  from  the  local*  inscriptions  of  the  same  kind  in  15 
Paul  and  Virginia.  He  did  not  own  the  obligation,  and 
stated  some  distinction  without  a  difference  in  defence 
to  his  claim  to  originality.  Any,  the  slightest  varia- 
tion, would  be  sufficient  for  this  purpose  in  his  mind; 
for  whatever  he  added  or  altered  would  inevitably  be  20 
worth  all  that  any  one  else  had  done,  and  contain  the 
marrow  of  the  sentiment.  I  was  still  two  days  before  the 
time  fixed  for  my  arrival,  for  I  had  taken  care  to  set  out 
early  enough.  I  stopped  these  two  days  at  Bridgewater; 
and  when  I  was  tired  of  sauntering  on  the  banks  of  its  25 
muddy  river,  returned  to  the  inn  and  read  Camilla.  So 
have  I  loitered  my  life  away,  reading  books,  looking  at 
pictures,  going  to  plays,  hearing,  thinking,  writing  on 
what  pleased  me  best.  I  have  wanted  only  one  thing 
to  make  me  happy;  but  wanting  that  have  wanted  30 
everything! 

I  arrived,  and  was  well  received.  The  country  about 
Nether  Stowey  is  beautiful,  green  and  hilly,  and  near  the 
sea-shore.     I  saw  it  but  the  other  day,  after  an  interval 


88  William  Hazlitt 

of  twenty  years,  from  a  hill  near  Taunton.  How  was 
the  map  of  my  life  spread  out  before  me,  as  the  map  of 
the  country  lay  at  my  feet!  In  the  afternoon,  Coleridge 
took  me  over  to  Alfoxden,  a  romantic  old  family  mansion 
5  of  the  St.  Aubins,  where  Wordsworth  lived.  It  was  then 
in  the  possession  of  a  friend  of  the  poet's,  who  gave  him 
the  free  use  of  it.  Somehow,  that  period  (the  time  just 
after  the  French  Revolution)  was  not  a  time  when  noth- 
ing was  given  for  nothing.     The  mind  opened  and  a  soft- 

lo  ness  might  be  perceived  coming  over  the  heart  of  individ- 
uals, beneath  "the  scales  that  fence"  our  self-interest. 
Wordsworth  himself  was  from  home,  but  his  sister  kept 
house,  and  set  before  us  a  frugal  repast;  and  we  had  free 
access    to   her   brother's   poems,    the    Lyrical  Ballads, 

IS  which  were  still  in  manuscript,  or  m  the  form  of  Sybilline 
Leaves.  I  dipped  into  a  few  of  these  with  great  satis- 
faction, and  with  the  faith  of  a  novice.  I  slept  that 
night  in  an  old  room  with  blue  hangings,  and  covered 
with  the  round-faced  family  portraits  of  the  age  of  George 

20  I.  and  II.,  and  from  the  wooded  declivity  of  the  adjoin- 
ing park  that  overlooked  my  window,  at  the  dawn  of 
day,  could 

"hear  the  loud  stag  speak." 

In  the  outset  of  life  (and  particularly  at  this  time  I 
25  felt  it  so)  our  imagination  has  a  body  to  it.  We  are  in  a 
state  between  sleeping  and  waking,  and  have  indistinct 
but  glorious  glimpses  of  strange  shapes,  and  there  is 
always  something  to  come  better  than  what  we  see.  As 
in  our  dreams  the  fulness  of  the  blood  gives  warmth  and 
30  reality  to  the  coinage  of  the  brain,  so  in  youth  our  ideas 
are  clothed,  and  fed,  and  pampered  with  our  good  spirits; 
we  breathe  thick  with  thoughtless  happiness,  the  weight 
of  future  years  presses  on  the  strong  pulses  of  the  heart, 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        8^ 

and  we  repose  with  undisturbed  faith  in  truth  and  good. 
As  we  advance,  we  exhaust  our  fund  of  enjoyment  and 
of  hope.  We  are  no  longer  wrapped  in  lamb^s-wool, 
lulled  in  Elysium.  As  we  taste  the  pleasures  of  life, 
their  spirit  evaporates,  the  sense  palls;  and  nothing  is  s 
left  but  the  phantoms,  the  lifeless  shadows  of  what  has 
been! 

That  morning,  as  soon  as  breakfast  was  over,  we 
strolled  out  into  the  park,  and  seating  ourselves  on  the 
trunk  of  an  old  ash-tree  that  stretched  along  the  ground,  lo 
Coleridge  read  aloud  with  a  sonorous  and  musical  voice, 
the  ballad  of  Betty  Foy.  I  was  not  critically  or  skeptic- 
ally inclined.  I  saw  touches  of  truth  and  nature,  and 
took  the  rest  for  granted.  But  in  the  Thorn,  the  Mad 
Mother,  and  the  Complaint  of  a  Poor  Indian  Woman,  I  15 
felt  that  deeper  power  and  pathos  which  have  been  since 
acknowledged, 

"In  spite  of  pride,  in  erring  reason's  spite," 

as  the  characteristics  of  this  author;  and  the  sense  of  a 
new  style  and  a  new  spirit  in  poetry  came  over  me.     It  20 
had  to  me  something  of  the  effect  that  arises  from  the 
turning  up  of  the  fresh  soil,  or  of  the  first  welcome  breath 
of  Spring: 

"While  yet  the  trembling  year  is  unconfirmed." 

Coleridge  and  myself  walked  back  to  Stowey  that  even-  25 
ing,  and  his  voice  sounded  high 

"Of  Providence,  foreknowledge,  will,  and  fate, 
Fix'd  fate,  free-will,  foreknowledge  absolute," 

as  we  passed  through    echoing  grove,  by  fairy  stream 
or  waterfall,  gleaming  in  the  summer  moonlight!     He  30 
lamented  that  Wordsworth  was  not  prone  enough  to 


90  William  Hazlitt 

believe  in  the  traditional  superstitions  of  the  place,  and 
that  there  was  a  something  corporeal,  a  matter-oj-fact- 
ness,  a  clinging  to  the  palpable,  or  often  to  the  petty,  in 
his  poetry,  in  consequence.  His  genius  was  not  a  spirit 
5  that  descended  to  him  through  the  air;  it  sprung  out  of 
the  ground  like  a  flower,  or  unfolded  itself  from  a  green 
spray,  on  which  the  goldfinch  sang.  He  said,  however 
(if  I  remember  right),  that  this  objection  must  be  con- 
fined to  his  descriptive  pieces,  that  his  philosophic  poetry 

lo  had  a  grand  and  comprehensive  spirit  in  it,  so  that  his 

soul  seemed  to  inhabit  the  universe  like  a  palace,  and  to 

discover  truth  by  intuition,  rather  than  by  deduction. 

The  next  day  Wordsworth  arrived  from  Bristol  at 

Coleridge's  cottage.     I  think  I  see  him  now.     He  an- 

1$  swered  in  some  degree  to  his  friend's  description  of  him, 
but  was  more  gaunt  and  Don  Quixote-like.  He  was 
quaintly  dressed  (according  to  the  costume  of  that  un- 
constrained period)  in  a  brown  fustian  jacket  and  striped 
pantaloons.    There  was  something  of  a  roll,  a  lounge  in 

20  his  gait,  not  unlike  his  own  Peter  Bell.  There  was  a 
severe,  worn  pressure  of  thought  about  his  temples,  a 
fire  in  his  eye  (as  if  he  saw  something  in  objects  more 
than  the  outward  appearance),  an  intense,  high,  narrow 
forehead,   a   Roman   nose,   cheeks  furrowed  by  strong 

25  purpose  and  feeling,  and  a  convulsive  inclination  to 
laughter  about  the  mouth,  a  good  deal  at  variance  with 
the  solemn,  stately  expression  of  the  rest  of  his  face. 
Chantrey's  bust  wants  the  marking  traits;  but  he  was 
teased  into   making  it  regular  and  heavy:   Haydon's 

30  head  of  him,  introduced  into  the  Entrance  of  Christ 
into  Jerusalem,  is  the  most  like  his  drooping  weight  of 
thought  and  expression.  He  sat  down  and  talked  very 
naturally  and  freely,  with  a  mixture  of  clear,  gushing 
accents  in  his  voice,  a  deep  guttural  intonation,  and  a 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        91 

strong  tincture  of  the  northern  burr,  hke  the  crust  on 
wine.  He  instantly  began  to  make  havoc  of  the  half  of  a 
Cheshire  cheese  on  the  table,  and  said,  triumphantly, 
that  "his  marriage  with  experience  had  not  been  so  pro- 
ductive as  Mr.  Southey's  in  teaching  him  a  knowledge  5 
of  the  good  things  of  this  life."  He  had  been  to  see  the 
Castle  Specter  by  Monk  Lewis,  while  at  Bristol,  and 
described  it  very  well.  He  said  "it  fitted  the  taste  of 
the  audience  like  a  glove."  This  ad  captandiini  merit 
was  however  by  no  means  a  recommendation  of  it,  10 
according  to  the  severe  principles  of  the  new  school, 
which  reject  rather  than  court  popular  effect.  Words- 
worth, looking  out  of  the  low,  latticed  window,  said 
"How  beautifully  the  sun  sets  on  that  yellow  bank!" 
I  thought  within  myself,  "With  what  eyes  these  poets  15 
see  nature!"  and  ever  after,  when  I  saw  the  sun-set 
stream  upon  the  objects  facing  it,  conceived  I  had  made 
a  discovery,  or  thanked  Mr.  Wordsworth  for  having 
made  one  for  me! 

We  went  over  to  Alfoxden  again  the  day  following,  20 
and  Wordsworth  read  us  the  story  of  Peter  Bell  in  the 
open  air;  and  the  comment  upon  it  by  his  face  and  voice 
was  very  different  from  that  of  some  later  critics!     What- 
ever might  be  thought  of  the  poem,  "his  face  was  as  a 
book  where  men  might  read  strange  matters,"  and  he  25 
announced  the  fate  of  his  hero  in  prophetic  tones.     There 
is  a  chaunt  in  the  recitation  both  of  Coleridge  and  Words- 
worth, which  acts  as  a  spell  upon  the  hearer,  and  disarms 
the  judgment.     Perhaps  they  have  deceived  themselves 
by  making  habitual  use  of  this  ambiguous  accompani-  30 
raent.     Coleridge's  manner  is  more  full,  animated,  and 
varied;  Wordsworth's  more  equable,  sustained,  and  in- 
ternal.    The  one  might  be  termed  more  dramatic,  the 
other  more  lyrical.     Coleridge  has  told  me  that  he  him- 


92  William  Hazlltt 

self  liked  to  compose  in  walking  over  uneven  ground, 
or  breaking  through  the  straggling  branches  of  a  copse 
wood;  whereas  Wordsworth  always  wrote  (if  he  could) 
walking  up  and  down  a  straight  gravel  walk,  or  in  some 
5  spot  where  the  continuity  of  his  verse  met  with  no  col- 
lateral interruption.  Returning  that  same  evening,  I 
got  into  a  metaphysical  argument  with  Wordsworth, 
while  Coleridge  was  explaining  the  different  notes  of  the 
nightingale  to  his  sister,  in  which  we  neither  of  us  suc- 
lo  ceeded  in  making  ourselves  perfectly  clear  and  intelligible. 
Thus  I  passed  three  weeks  at  Nether  Stowey  and  in  the 
neighborhood,  generally  devoting  the  afternoons  to  a 
delightful  chat  in  an  arbor  made  of  bark  by  the  poet's 
friend  Tom  Poole,  sitting  under  two  fine  elm-trees,  and 
15  listening  to  the  bees  humming  round  us  while  we  quaffed 
our  flip. 

It  was  agreed,  among  other  things,  that  we  should 
make  a  jaunt  down  the  Bristol  Channel,  as  far  as  Linton. 
We  set  off  together  on  foot,  Coleridge,  John  Chester,  and 
20  I.  This  Chester  was  a  native  of  Nether  Stowey,  one  of 
those  who  were  attracted  to  Coleridge's  discourse  as 
flies  are  to  honey,  or  bees  in  swarming-time  to  the  sound 
of  a  brass  pan.  He  "followed  in  the  chase  like  a  dcg  who 
hunts,  not  like  one  that  made  up  the  cry."  He  had  on 
25  a  brown  cloth  coat,  boots,  and  corduroy  breeches,  was  low 
in  stature,  bow-legged,  had  a  drag  in  his  walk  like  a  drover, 
which  he  assisted  by  a  hazel  switch,  and  kept  on  a  sort  of 
trot  by  the  side  of  Coleridge,  like  a  running  footman  by  a 
state  coach,  that  he  might  not  lose  a  syllable  or  sound  that 
30  fell  from  Coleridge's  lips.  He  told  me  his  private  opin- 
ion, that  Coleridge  was  a  wonderful  man.  He  scarcely 
opened  his  lips,  much  less  offered  an  opinion  the  whole 
way:  yet  of  the  three,  had  I  to  choose  during  that  journey, 
I  would  be  John  Chester.     He  afterward  followed  Cole- 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        93 

ridge  into  Germany,  where  the  Kantean  philosophers  were 
puzzled  how  to  bring  him  under  any  of  their  categories. 
When  he  sat  down  at  table  with  his  idol,  John's  felicity 
was  complete;  Sir  Walter  Scott's,  or  Mr.  Blackwood's, 
when  they  sat  down  at  the  same  table  with  the  king,  was  5 
not  more  so.  We  passed  Dunster  on  our  right,  a  small 
town  between  the  brow  of  a  hill  and  the  sea.  I  remember 
eyeing  it  wistfully  as  it  lay  below  us:  contrasted  with  the 
woody  scene  around,  it  looked  as  clear,  as  pure,  as 
embrowned  and  ideal  as  any  landscape  I  have  seen  since,  10 
of  Caspar  Poussin's  or  Domenichino's.  We  had  a  long 
day's  march  (our  feet  kept  time  to  the  echoes  of  Cole- 
ridge's tongue)  through  Minehead  and  by  the  Blue  An- 
chor, and  on  to  Linton,  which  we  did  not  reach  till  near 
midnight,  and  where  we  had  some  difficulty  in  making  15 
a  lodgment.  We,  however,  knocked  the  people  of  the 
house  up  at  last,  and  we  were  repaid  for  our  apprehen- 
sions and  fatigue  by  some  excellent  rashers  of  fried  bacon 
and  eggs.  The  view  in  coming  along  had  been  splendid. 
We  walked  for  miles  and  miles  on  dark  brown  heaths  20 
overlooking  the  Channel,  with  the  Welsh  hills  beyond,  and 
at  times  descended  into  little  sheltered  valleys  close  by 
the  sea-side,  with  a  smuggler's  face  scowling  by  us,  and 
then  had  to  ascend  conical  hills  with  a  path  winding  up 
through  a  coppice  to  a  barren  top,  like  a  monk's  shaven  25 
crown,  from  one  of  which  I  pointed  out  to  Coleridge's 
notice  the  bare  masts  of  a  vessel  on  the  very  edge  of  the 
horizon,  and  within  the  red-orbed  disk  of  the  setting  sun, 
like  his  own  specter-ship  in  the  A  ncient  Mariner. 

At  Linton  the  character  of  the  sea-coast  becomes  more  30 
marked  and  rugged.     There  is  a  place  called  the  Valley 
of  Rocks  (I  suspect  this  was  only  the  poetical  name  for  it), 
bedded  among  precipices  overhanging  the  sea,  with  rocky 
caverns  beneath,  into  which  the  waves  dash,  and  where 


94  William  Hazlitt 

the  sea-gull  for  ever  wheels  its  screaming  flight.  On 
the  tops  of  these  are  huge  stones  thrown  transverse, 
as  if  an  earthquake  had  tossed  them  there,  and  behind 
these  is  a  fretwork  of  perpendicular  rocks,  something  like 
5  the  Giant's  Causeway.  A  thunder-storm  came  on  while 
we  were  at  the  inn,  and  Coleridge  was  running  out  bare- 
headed to  enjoy  the  commotion  of  the  elements  in  the 
Valley  of  Rocks,  but  as  if  in  spite,  the  clouds  only  mut- 
tered a  few  angry  sounds,  and  let  fall  a  few  refreshing 

lo  drops.  Coleridge  told  me  that  he  and  Wordsworth  were 
to  have  made  this  place  the  scene  of  a  prose-tale,  which 
was  to  have  been  in  the  manner  of,  but  far  superior  to, 
the  Death  of  Abel,  but  they  had  relinquished  the  design. 
In  the  morning  of  the  second  day,  we  breakfasted  luxu- 

15  riously  in  an  old-fashioned  parlor  on  tea,  toast,  eggs, 
and  honey,  in  the  very  sight  of  the  bee-hives  from  which 
it  had  been  taken,  and  a  garden  full  of  thyme  and  wild 
flowers  that  had  produced  it. 

On  this  occasion  Coleridge  spoke  of  Virgil's  Georgics, 

20  but  not  well.  I  do  not  think  he  had  much  feeling  for  the 
classical  or  elegant.^  It  was  in  this  room  that  we  found 
a  little  worn-out  copy  of  the  Seasons,  lying  in  a  window- 
seat,  on  which  Coleridge  exclaimed,  "  That  is  true  fame!" 
He  said  Thomson  was  a  great  poet,  rather  than  a  good 

25  one;  his  style  was  as  meretricious  as  his  thoughts  were 
natural.  He  spoke  of  Cowper  as  the  best  modern  poet. 
He  said  the  Lyrical  Ballads  were  an  experiment  about  to 

*  He  had  no  idea  of  pictures,  of  Claude  or  Raphael,  and  at  this 
time  I  had  as  little  as  he.  He  sometimes  gives  a  striking  account 
at  present  of  the  Cartoons  at  Pisa  b}'  Buffamalco  and  others;  of  one 
in  particular,  where  Death  is  seen  in  the  air  brandishing  his  scythe, 
and  the  great  and  mighty  of  the  earth  shudder  at  his  approach, 
while  the  beggars  and  the  wretched  kneel  to  him  as  their  deliverer. 
He  would,  of  course,  understand  so  broad  and  line  a  moral  as  this  at 
any  time. 


My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets        95 

be  tried  by  him  and  Wordsworth,  to  see  how  far  the 
public  taste  would  endure  poetry  written  in  a  more  natu- 
ral and  simple  style  than  had  hitherto  been  attempted; 
totally  discarding  the  artifices  of  poetical  diction,  and 
making  use  only  of  such  words  as  had  probably  been  5 
common  in  the  most  ordinary  language  since  the  days  of 
Henry  II.  Some  comparison  was  introduced  between 
Shakespeare  and  Milton.  He  said  "he  hardly  knew 
which  to  prefer.  Shakespeare  appeared  to  him  a  mere 
stripling  in  the  art;  he  was  as  tall  and  as  strong,  with  10 
infinitely  more  activity  than  Milton,  but  he  never 
appeared  to  have  come  to  man's  estate;  or  if  he  had,  he 
would  not  have  been  a  man,  but  a  monster."  He 
spoke  with  contempt  of  Gray,  and  with  intolerance  of 
Pope.  He  did  not  like  the  versification  of  the  latter.  15 
He  observed  that  "the  ears  of  these  couplet-writers  might 
be  charged  with  having  short  memories,  that  could  not 
retain  the  harmony  of  whole  passages."  He  thought 
little  of  Junius  as  a  writer;  he  had  a  dislike  of  Dr.  John- 
son; and  a  much  higher  opinion  of  Burke  as  an  orator  20 
and  politician,  than  of  Fox  or  Pitt.  He,  however, 
thought  him  very  inferior  in  richness  of  style  and  imagery 
to  some  of  our  elder  prose-writers,  particularly  Jeremy 
Taylor,  He  liked  Richardson,  but  not  Fielding;  nor 
could  I  get  him  to  enter  into  the  merits  of  Caleb  Williams.  25 
In  short,  he  was  profound  and  discriminating  with  respect 
to  those  authors  whom  he  liked,  and  where  he  gave  his 
judgment  fair  play;  capricious,  perverse,  and  prejudiced 
in  his  antipathies  and  distastes. 

We  loitered  on  the  "ribbed  sea  sands,"  in  such  talk  as  30 
this  a  whole  morning,  and,  I  recollect,  met  with  a  curi- 
ous seaweed,  of  which  John  Chester  told  us  the  country 
name!     A  fisherman  gave  Coleridge  an  account  of  a  boy 
that  had  been  drowned  the  day  before,  and  that  they  had 


9^  William  Hazlitt 

tried  to  save  him  at  the  risk  of  their  own  lives.  He  said 
"he  did  not  know  how  it  was  that  they  ventured,  but, 
Sir,  we  have  a  nature  toward  one  another."  This  expres- 
sion, Coleridge  remarked  to  me,  was  a  fine  illustration  of 
5  that  theory  of  disinterestedness  which  I  (in  common  with 
Butler)  had  adopted.  I  broached  to  him  an  argument  of 
mine  to  prove  that  likeness  was  not  mere  association  of 
ideas.  I  said  that  the  mark  in  the  sand  put  one  in  mind 
of  a  man's  foot,  not  because  it  was  part  of  a  former 

lo  impression  of  a  man's  foot  (for  it  was  quite  new),  but 
because  it  was  like  the  shape  of  a  man's  foot.  He 
assented  to  the  justness  of  this  distinction  (which  I  have 
explained  at  length  elsewhere,  for  the  benefit  of  the  curi- 
ous) and  John  Chester  listened;  not  from  any  interest 

15  in  the  subject,  but  because  he  was  astonished  that  I 
should  be  able  to  suggest  anything  to  Coleridge  that  he 
did  not  already  know.  We  returned  on  the  third  morn- 
ing, and  Coleridge  remarked  the  silent  cottage-smoke 
curling  up  the  valleys  where,  a  few  evenings  before,  we 

20  had  seen  the  lights  gleaming  through  the  dark. 

In  a  day  or  two  after  we  arrived  at  Stowey,  we  set 
out,  I  on  my  return  home,  and  he  for  Germany.  It 
was  a  Sunday  morning,  and  he  was  to  preach  that  day  for 
Dr.  Toulmin  of  Taunton.     I  asked  him  if  he  had  prepared 

25  anything  for  the  occasion?  He  said  he  had  not  even 
thought  of  the  text,  but  should  as  soon  as  we  parted.  I 
did  not  go  to  hear  him — this  was  a  fault — but  we  met  in 
the  evening  at  Bridgewater.  The  next  day  we  had  a  long 
day's  walk  to  Bristol,  and  sat  down,  I  recollect,  by  a 

30  well-side  on  the  road,  to  cool  ourselves  and  satisfy  our 
thirst,  when  Coleridge  repeated  to  me  some  descriptive 
lines  of  his  tragedy  of  Remorse;  which  I  must  say  became 
his  mouth  and  that  occasion  better  than  they,  some  years 
after,  did  Mr.  Elliston's  and  the  Drury-lane  boards — 


On  Going  a  Journey  97 

"Oh  memory;  shield  me  from  the  world's  poor  strife, 
And  give  those  scenes  thine  everlasting  life." 

I  saw  no  more  of  him  for  a  year  or  two,  during  which 
period  he  had  been  wandering  in  the  Hartz  Forest,  in 
Germany;  and   his   return   was   cometary,    meteorous,    ^ 
unlike  his  setting  out.     It  was  not  till  some  time  after 
that  I  knew  his  friends  Lamb  and  Southey.     The  last 
always  appears  to  me  (as  T  first  saw  him)  with  a  common- 
place book  under  his  arm,  and  the  first  with  a  hon-mot 
in  his  mouth.     It  was  at  Godwin's  that  I  met  him  with  ^^ 
Holcroft    and    Coleridge,    where   they   were   disputing 
fiercely  which  was  the  best — Man  as  he  was,  or  man  as 
he  is  to  be.     "Give  me,"  says  Lamb,  "man  as  he  is  not 
to  be."    This  saying  was  the  beginning  of  a  friendship 
between  us  which  I  believe  still  continues.     Enough  of  j^ 
this  for  the  present. 

"But  there  is  matter  for  another  rime, 
And  I  to  this  may  add  a  second  tale." 

ON  GOING  A  JOURNEY 

One  of  the  pleasantest  things  in  the  world  is  going  a 
journey;  but  I  like  to  go  by  myself.     I  can  enjoy  society  20 
in  a  room;  but  out  of  doors,  nature  is  company  enough  for 
me.     I  am  then  never  less  alone  than  when  alone. 

"The  fields  his  study,  nature  was  his  book." 

I  cannot  see  the  wit  of  walking  and  talking  at  the  same 
time.  When  I  am  in  the  country,  I  wish  to  vegetate  like  25 
the  country.  I  am  not  for  criticising  hedge-rows  and 
black  cattle.  I  go  out  of  town  in  order  to  forget  the  town 
and  all  that  is  in  it.  There  are  those  who  for  this  purpose 
go  to  watering-places,  and  carry  the  metropolis  with 
them.     I  like  more  elbow-room,  and  fewer  incumbrances.  30 


98  William  Hazlitt 

I  like  solitude,  when  I  give  myself  up  to  it,  for  the  sake  of 
solitude;  nor  do  I  ask  for 

"a  friend  in  my  retreat, 


Whom  I  may  whisper  solitude  is  sweet." 

5  The  soul  of  a  journey  is  liberty,  perfect  liberty,  to  think, 
feel,  do  just  as  one  pleases.  We  go  a  journey  chiefly  to  be 
free  of  all  impediments  and  of  all  inconveniences;  to  leave 
ourselves  behind,  much  more  to  get  rid  of  others.  It  is 
because  I  want  a  little  breathing-space  to  muse  on  indiffer- 
lo  ent  matters,  where  Contemplation 

"May  plume  her  feathers  and  let  grow  her  wings, 
That  in  the  various  bustle  of  resort 
Were  all  too  ruffled,  and  sometimes  impair'd," 

that  I  absent  myself  from  the  town  for  awhile,  without 

1 5  feeling  at  a  loss  the  moment  I  am  left  by  myself.  Instead 
of  a  friend  in  a  postchaise  or  in  a  Tilbury,  to  exchange 
good  things  with,  and  vary  the  same  stale  topics  over 
again,  for  once  let  me  have  a  truce  with  impertinence. 
Give  me  the  clear  blue  sky  over  my  head,  and  the  green 

2o  turf  beneath  my  feet,  a  winding  road  befoie  me,  and  a 
three  hours'  march  to  dinner — and  then  to  thinking!  It 
is  hard  if  I  cannot  start  some  game  on  these  lone  heaths. 
I  laugh,  I  run,  I  leap,  I  sing  for  joy.  From  the  point  of 
yonder  rolling  cloud,  I  plunge  into  my  past  being,  and 

25  revel  there,  as  the  sun-burnt  Indian  plunges  headlong 
into  the  wave  that  wafts  him  to  his  native  shore.  Then 
long-forgotten  things,  like  ''sunken  wrack  and  sumless 
treasuries,"  burst  upon  my  eager  sight,  and  I  begin  to 
feel,  think,  and  be  myself  again.     Instead  of  an  awkward 

30  silence,  broken  by  attempts  at  wit  or  dull  commonplaces, 
mine  is  that  undisturbed  silence  of  the  heart  which  aione 
is  perfect  eloquence.     No  one  likes  puns,  alliterations, 


On  Going  a  Journey  99 

antitheses,  argument,  and  analysis  better  than  I  do;  but 
I  sometimes  had  rather  be  without  them.  "Leave,  oh, 
leave  me  to  my  repose!"  I  have  just  now  other  business 
in  hand,  which  would  seem  idle  to  you,  but  is  with  me 
"very  stuff  of  the  conscience."  Is  not  this  wild  rose  5 
sweet  without  a  comment?  Does  not  this  daisy  leap  to 
my  heart  set  in  its  coat  of  emerald?  Yet  if  I  weie  to 
explain  to  you  the  circumstance  that  has  so  endeared  it  to 
me,  you  would  only  smile.  Had  I  not  better  then  keep 
it  to  myself,  and  let  it  serve  me  to  brood  over,  from  here  to  10 
yonder  craggy  point,  and  from  thence  onward  to  the  far- 
distant  horizon?  I  should  be  but  bad  company  all  that 
way,  and  therefore  prefer  being  alone.  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  you  may,  when  the  moody  fit  comes  on,  walk 
or  ride  on  by  yourself,  and  indulge  your  reveries.  But  15 
this  looks  like  a  breach  of  manners,  a  neglect  of  others, 
and  you  are  thinking  all  the  time  that  you  ought  to 
rejoin  your  party.  "Out  upon  such  half-faced  fellow- 
ship," say  I.  I  like  to  be  either  entirely  to  myself,  or 
entirely  at  the  disposal  of  others;  to  talk  or  be  silent,  to  20 
walk  or  sit  still,  to  be  sociable  or  solitary.  I  was  pleased 
with  an  observation  of  Mr.  Cobbett's,  that  "he  thought  it 
a  bad  French  custom  to  drink  our  wine  with  our  meals, 
and  that  an  Englishman  ought  to  do  only  one  thing  at  a 
time."  So  I  cannot  talk  and  think,  or  indulge  in  melan-  25 
choly  musing  and  lively  conversation  by  fits  and  starts. 
"Let  me  have  a  companion  of  my  way,"  says  Sterne, 
"were  it  but  to  remark  how  the  shadows  lengthen  as  the 
sun  declines."  It  is  beautifully  said:  but  in  my  opinion, 
this  continual  comparing  of  notes  interferes  with  the  30 
involuntary  impression  of  things  upon  the  mind,  and 
hurts  the  sentiment.  If  you  only  hint  what  you  feel  in  a 
kind  of  dumb  show,  it  is  insipid:  if  you  have  to  explain 
it,  it  is  making  a  toil  of  a  pleasure.     You  cannot  read  the 


lOO  William  Hazlitt 

book  of  nature,  without  being  perpetually  put  to  the 
trouble  of  translating  it  for  the  benefit  of  others. 

I  am  for  the  synthetical  method  on  a  journey,  in  pref- 
erence to  the  analytical.  I  am  content  to  lay  in  a  stock 
5  of  ideas  then,  and  to  examine  and  anatomize  them  after- 
ward. I  want  to  see  my  vague  notions  float  like  the  down 
of  the  thistle  before  the  breeze,  and  not  to  have  them 
entangled  in  the  briars  and  thorns  of  controversy.  For 
once,  I  like  to  have  it  all  my  own  way;  and  this  is  impos- 

lo  sible  unless  you  are  alone,  or  in  such  company  as  I  do  not 
covet.  I  have  no  objection  to  argue  a  point  with  any 
one  for  twenty  miles  of  measured  road,  but  not  for  pleas- 
ure. If  you  remark  the  scent  of  a  beanfield  crossing  the 
road,  perhaps  your  fellow-traveler  has  no  smell.     If  you 

15  point  to  a  distant  object,  perhaps  he  is  short-sighted,  and 
has  to  take  out  his  glass  to  look  at  it.  There  is  a  feeling 
in  the  air,  a  tone  in  the  color  of  a  cloud  which  hits  your 
fancy,  but  the  effect  of  which  you  are  unable  to  account 
for.     There  is  then  no  sympathy,  but  an  uneasy  craving 

20  after  it,  and  a  dissatisfaction  which  pursues  you  on  the 
way,  and  in  the  end  probably  produces  ill  humor.  Now 
I  never  quarrel  with  myself,  and  take  all  my  own  conclu- 
sions for  granted  till  I  find  it  necessary  to  defend  them 
against  objections.     It  is  not  merely  that  you  may  not 

25  be  of  accord  on  the  objects  and  circumstances  that  pre- 
sent themselves  before  you — these  may  recall  a  number 
of  objects,  and  lead  to  associations  too  delicate  and  refined 
to  be  possibly  communicated  to  others.  Yet  these  I 
love  to  cherish,  and  sometimes  still  fondly  clutch  them, 

30  when  I  can  escape  from  the  throng  to  do  so.  To  give 
way  to  our  feelings  before  company,  seems  extravagance 
or  affectation;  and  on  the  other  hand,  to  have  to  unravel 
this  mystery  of  our  being  at  every  turn,  and  to  make 
others  take  an  equal  interest  in  it  (otherwise  the  end  is 


On  Going  a  Journey  loi 

not  answered)  is  a  task  to  which  few  are  competent.     We 
must  "give  it  an  understanding,  but  no  tongue."      My 

old  friend  C ,  however,  could  do  both.     He  could 

go  on  in  the  most  delightful  explanatory  way  over  hill 
and  dale,  a  summer's  day,  and  convert  a  landscape  into  a  5 
didactic  poem  or  a  Pindaric  ode.  "He  talked  far  above 
singing."  If  I  could  so  clothe  my  ideas  in  sounding  and 
flowing  words,  I  might  perhaps  wish  to  have  some  one 
with  me  to  admire  the  swelling  theme;  or  I  could  be  more 
content,  were  it  possible  for  me  still  to  hear  his  echoing  10 
voice  in  the  woods  of  Alfoxden.  They  had  "that  fine 
madness  in  them  which  our  first  poets  had";  and  if  they 
could  have  been  caught  by  some  rare  instrument,  would 
have  breathed  such  strains  as  the  following: 

"  Here  be  woods  as  green  i^ 

As  any,  air  likewise  as  fresh  and  sweet 
As  when  smooth  zephyrus  plays  on  the  fleet 
Face  of  the  curled  stream,  with  flow'rs  as  many 
As  the  young  spring  gives,  and  as  choice  as  any; 
Here  be  all  new  delights,  cool  streams  and  wells,  20 

Arbors  o'ergrown  with  woodbine,  caves  and  dells; 
*  Choose  where  thou  wilt,  while  I  sit  by  and  sing, 

Or  gather  rushes  to  make  many  a  ring 
for  thy  long  fingers;  tell  thee  tales  of  love, 
How  the  pale  Phoebe,  hunting  i-n  a  grove,  25 

First  saw  the  boy  Endymion,  from  whose  eyes 
She  took  eternal  fire  that  never  dies; 
How  she  convey'd  him  softly  in  a  sleep. 
His  temples  bound  with  poppy,  to  the  steep 
Head  of  old  Latmos,  where  she  stoops  each  night,  30 

Gilding  the  mountain  witn  her  brother's  light, 

To  kiss  her  sweetest." 

Faithful  Shepherdess. 

Had  I  words  and  images  at  command  like  these,  I  would 
attempt  to  wake  the  thoughts  that  he  slumbering  on  35 


I02  William  Hazlitt 

golden  ridges  in  the  evening  clouds:  but  at  the  sight  of 
nature  my  fancy,  poor  as  it  is,  droops  and  closes  up  its 
leaves,  like  flowers  at  sunset.     I  can  make  nothing  out  on 
the  spot: — I  must  have  time  to  collect  myself. — ■ 
5      In  general,  a  good  thing  spoils  out-of-door  prospects: 

it  should  be  reserved  for  Table-talk.    L is  for  this 

reason,  I  take  it,  the  worst  company  in  the  world  out  of 
doors;  because  he  is  the  best  within.  I  grant,  there  is 
one  subject  on  which  it  is  pleasant  to  talk  on  a  journey; 

lo  and  that  is,  what  one  shall  have  for  supper  when  we  get  to 
our  inn  at  night.  The  open  air  improves  this  sort  of 
conversation  or  friendly  altercation,  by  setting  a  keener 
edge  on  appetite.  Every  mile  of  the  road  heightens  the 
flavor  of  the  viands  we  expect  at  the  end  of  it.     How  fine 

\  5  it  is  to  enter  some  old  town,  walled  and  turreted  just  at 
the  approach  of  nightfall,  or  to  come  to  some  straggling 
village,  with  the  lights  streaming  through  the  surrounding 
gloom;  and  then  after  inquiring  for  the  best  entertain- 
ment that  the  place  affords,  to  ''take  one's  ease  at  one's 

20  inn"!  These  eventful  moments  in  our  lives'  history  are 
too  precious,  too  full  of  solid,  heartfelt  happiness  to  ^e 
frittered  and  dribbled  away  in  imperfect  sympathy.  I 
would  have  them  all  to  myself,  and  drain  them  to  the 
last  drop :  they  will  do  to  talk  of  or  to  write  about  after- 

25  ward.  What  a  delicate  speculation  it  is,  after  drinking 
whole  goblets  of  tea, 

"The  cups  that  cheer,  but  not  inebriate," 

and  letting  the  fumes  ascend  into  the  brain,  to  sit  con- 
sidering what  we  shall  have  for  supper — eggs  and  a  rasher, 
30  a  rabbit  smothered  in  onions,  or  an  excellent  veal-cutlet! 
Sancho  in  such  a  situation  once  fixed  upon  cow-heel;  and 
his  choice,  though  he  could  not  help  it,  is  not  to  be 
disparaged.     Then  in  the  intervals  of  pictured  scenery 


On  Going  a  Journey  103 

and  Shandean  contemplation,  to  catch  the  preparation 
and  the  stir  in  the  kitchen — Procul,  0  procul  este  profani! 
These  hours  are  sacred  to  silence  and  to  musing,  to  be 
treasured  up  in  the  memory,  and  to  feed  the  source  of 
smiling  thoughts  hereafter.  I  would  not  waste  them  in  5 
idle  talk;  or  if  I  must  have  the  integrity  of  fancy  broken 
in  upon,  I  would  rather  it  were  by  a  stranger  than  a  friend. 
A  stranger  takes  his  hue  and  character  from  the  time  and 
place;  he  is  a  part  of  the  furniture  and  costume  of  an 
inn.  If  he  is  a  Quaker,  or  from  the  West  Riding  of  York-  10 
shire,  so  much  the  better.  I  do  not  even  try  to  sympa- 
thize with  him,  and  he  breaks  no  squares.  I  associate 
nothing  with  my  traveling  companion  but  present  objects 
and  passing  events.  In  his  ignorance  of  me  and  my 
affairs,  I  in  a  manner  forget  myself.  But  a  friend  reminds  15 
one  of  other  things,  rips  up  old  grievances,  and  destroys 
the  abstraction  of  the  scene.  He  comes  in  ungraciously 
between  us  and  our  imaginary  character.  Something  is 
dropped  in  the  course  of  conversation  that  gives  a  hint  of 
your  profession  and  pursuits;  or  from  having  some  one  20 
with  you  that  knows  the  less  sublime  portions  of  your 
history,  it  seems  that  other  people  do.  You  are  no  longer 
a  citizen  of  the  world:  but  your  "unhoused  free  condition 
is  put  into  circumscription  and  confine." 

The  incognito  of  an  inn  is  one  of  its  striking  privileges —  25 
"lord  of  one's-self,  uncumber'd  with  a  name."  Oh! 
it  is  great  to  shake  off  the  trammels  of  the  world  and  of 
public  opinion — to  lose  our  importunate,  tormenting, 
everlasting  personal  identity  in  the  elements  of  nature, 
and  become  the  creature  of  the  moment,  clear  of  all  ties —  30 
to  hold  to  the  universe  only  by  a  dish  of  sweetbreads,  and 
to  owe  nothing  but  the  score  of  the  evening — and  no 
longer  seeking  for  applause  and  meeting  with  contempt, 
to  be  known  by  no  other  title  than  the  Gentleman  in  the 


104  William  Hazlitt 

Parlor!  One  may  take  one's  choice  of  all  characters  in 
this  romantic  state  of  uncertainty  as  to  one's  real  pre- 
tensions, and  become  indefinitely  respectable  and  nega- 
tively right-worshipful.  We  baffle  prejudice  and  dis- 
5  appoint  conjecture;  and  from  being  so  to  others,  begin  to 
be  objects  of  curiosity  and  wonder  even  to  ourselves.  We 
are  no  more  those  hackneyed  commonplaces  that  we 
appear  in  the  world:  an  inn  restores  us  to  the  level  of 
nature,  and  quits  scores  with  society!     I  have  certainly 

lo  spent  some  enviable  hours  at  inns— sometimes  when  I 
have  been  left  entirely  to  myself,  and  have  tried  to  solve 
some  metaphysical  problem,  as  once  at  Witham-common, 
where  I  found  out  the  proof  that  likeness  is  not  a  case  of 
the  association  of  ideas — at  other  times,  when  there  have 

15  been  pictures  in  the  room,  as  at  St.  Neot's  (I  think  it 
was),  where  I  first  met  with  Gribelin's  engravings  of  the 
Cartoons,  into  which  I  entered  at  once  and  at  a. little  inn 
on  the  borders  of  Wales,  where  there  happened  to  be 
hanging  some  of  Westall's  drawings,  which  I  compared 

20  triumphantly  (for  a  theory  that  I  had,  not  for  the  admired 
artist)  with  the  figure  of  a  girl  who  had  ferried  me  over  the 
Severn,  standing  up  in  the  boat  between  me  and  the 
twilight — at  other  times  I  might  mention  luxuriating  in 
books,  with  a  peculiar  interest  in  this  way,  as  I  remember 

25  sitting  up  half  the  night  to  read  Paul  and  Virginia,  which 
I  picked  up  at  an  inn  at  Bridgewater,  after  being  drenched 
in  the  rain  all  day;  and  at  the  same  place  I  got  through 
two  volumes  of  Madame  D'Arblay's  Camilla.  It  was  on 
the  tenth  of  April,  1798,  that  I  sat  down  to  a  volume  of 

30  the  New  Elo'ise,  at  the  inn  at  Llangollen,  over  a  bottle  of 
sherry  and  a  cold  chicken.  The  letter  I  chose  was  that  in 
which  St.  Preux  describes  his  feelings  as  he  first  caught  a 
glimpse  from  the  heights  of  the  Jura  of  the  Pays  de  Vaud,. 
which  I  had  brought  with  me  as  a  bon  boiiche  to  crown  the 


On  Going  a  Journey  105 

evening  with.  It  was  my  birthday,  and  I  had  for  the  first 
time  come  from  a  place  in  the  neighborhood  to  visit  this 
delightful  spot.  The  road  to  Llangollen  turns  off  be- 
tween Chirk  and  Wrexham;  and  on  passing  a  certain 
point,  you  come  all  at  once  upon  the  valley,  which  opens  5 
like  an  amphitheater,  broad,  barren  hills  rising  in  majestic 
state  on  either  side,  with  "green  upland  swells  that  echo 
to  the  bleat  of  flocks"  below,  and  the  river  Dee  babbling 
over  its  stony  bed  in  the  midst  of  them.  The  valley  at 
this  time  "glittered  green  with  sunny  showers,"  and  a  10 
budding  ash-tree  dipped  its  tender  branches  in  the  chiding 
stream.  How  proud,  how  glad  I  was  to  walk  along  the 
high  road  that  overlooks  the  delicious  prospect,  repeating 
the  lines  which  I  have  just  quoted  from  Mr.  Coleridge's 
poems!  But  besides  the  prospect  which  opened  beneath  15 
my  feet,  another  also  opened  to  my  inward  sight,  a  heav- 
enly vision,  on  which  were  written,  in  letters  large  as  Hope 
could  make  them,  these  four  words.  Liberty,  Genius, 
Love,  Virtue;  which  have  since  faded  into  the  light  of 
common  day,  or  mock  my  idle  gaze.  20 

"The  beautiful  is  vanished,  and  returns  not." 

Still  I  would  return  some  time  or  other  to  this  enchanted 
spot;  but  I  Vould  return  to  it  alone.  What  other  self 
could  I  find  to  share  that  influx  of  thoughts,  of  regret,  and 
delight,  the  fragments  of  which  I  could  hardly  conjure  up  25 
to  myself,  so  much  have  they  been  broken  and  defaced! 
I  could  stand  on  some  tall  rock,  and  overlook  the  preci- 
pice of  years  that  separates  me  from  what  I  then  was.  I 
was  at  that  time  going  shortly  to  visit  the  poet  whom  I 
have  above  named.  Where  is  he  now?  Not  only  I  30 
myself  have  changed;  the  world,  which  was  then  new 
to  me,  has  become  old  and  incorrigible.  Yet  will  I  turn 
to  thee  in  thought,  O  sylvan  Dee,  in  joy,  in  youth  and 


io6  William  Hazlitt 

gladness  as  thou  then  wert;  and  thou  shalt  always  be 
to  me  the  river  of  Paradise,  where  I  will  drink  of  the 
waters  of  life  freely! 

There  is  hardly  any  thing  that  shows  the  short-sighted- 
5  ness  of  capriciousness  of  the  imagination  more  than  travel- 
ing does.  With  change  of  place  we  change  our  ideas; 
nay,  our  opinions  and  feeUngs.  We  can  by  an  effort 
indeed  transport  ourselves  to  old  and  long-forgotten 
scenes,  and  then  the  picture  of  the  mind  revives  again; 

lo  but  we  forget  those  that  we  have  just  left.  It  seems  that 
we  can  think  but  of  one  place  at  a  time.  The  canvas  of 
the  fancy  is  but  of  a  certain  extent,  and  if  we  paint  one  set 
of  objects  upon  it,  they  immediately  efface  every  other. 
We  cannot  enlarge  our  conceptions,  we  only  shift  our 

15  point  of  view.  The  landscape  bares  its  bosom  to  the 
enraptured  eye,  we  take  our  fill  of  it,  and  seem  as  if  we 
could  form  no  other  image  of  beauty  or  grandeur.  We 
pass  on,  and  think  no  more  of  it:  the  horizon  that  shuts  it 
from  our  sight,  also  blots  it  from  our  memory  like  a 

20  dream.  In  traveling  through  a  wild  barren  country,  I 
can  form  no  idea  of  a  woody  and  cultivated  one.  It 
appears  to  me  that  all  the  world  must  be  barren,  like  what 
I  see  of  it.  In  the  country  we  forget  the  town,  and  in 
town  we  despise  the  country.     ''Beyond  Hyde  Park," 

25  says  Sir  Fopling  Flutter,  "all  is  a  desert."  All  that  part 
of  the  map  that  we  do  not  see  before  us  is  a  blank.  The 
world  in  our  conceit  of  it  is  not  much  bigger  than  a  nut- 
shell. It  is  not  one  prospect  expanded  into  another, 
county  joined  to  county,  kingdom  to  kingdom,  lands  to 

30  seas,  making  an  image  voluminous  and  vast; — the  mind 
can  form  no  larger  idea  of  space  than  the  eye  can  take  in 
at  a  single  glance.  The  rest  is  a  name  written  in  a 
map,  a  calculation  of  arithmetic.  For  instance,  what  is 
the  true  signification  of  that  immense  mass  of  territory 


On  Going  a  Journey  107 

and  population  known  by  the  name  of  China  to  us?  An 
inch  of  paste-board  on  a  wooden  globe,  of  no  more  account 
than  a  China  orange!  Things  near  us  are  seen  of  the 
size  of  life:  things  at  a  distance  are  diminished  to  the 
size  of  the  understanding.  We  measure  the  universe  by  5 
ourselves,  and  even  comprehend  the  texture  of  our 
own  being  only  piecemeal.  In  this  way,  however,  we 
remember  an  infinity  of  things  and  places.  The  mind  is 
like  a  mechanical  instrument  that  plays  a  great  variety 
of  tunes,  but  it  must  play  them  in  succession.  One  10 
idea  recalls  another,  but  it  at  the  same  time  excludes  all 
others.  In  trying  to  renew  old  recollections,  we  cannot 
as  it  were  unfold  the  whole  web  of  our  existence;  we 
must  pick  out  the  single  threads.  So  in  coming  to  a  place 
where  we  have  formerly  lived  and  with  which  we  have  15 
intimate  associations,  every  one  must  have  found  that 
the  feeling  grows  more  vivid  the  nearer  we  approach  the 
spot,  from  the  mere  anticipation  of  the  actual  impression: 
we  remember  circumstances,  feelings,  persons,  faces, 
names,  that  we  had  not  thought  of  for  years;  but  for  the  20 
time  all  the  rest  of  the  world  is  forgotten! — To  return  to 
the  question  I  have  quitted  above. 

I  have  no  objection  to  go  to  see  ruins,  aqueducts,  pic- 
tures, in  company  with  a  friend  or  a  party,  but  rather 
the  contrary,  for  the  former  reason  reversed.  They  are  25 
intelligible  matters,  and  will  bear  talking  about.  The 
sentiment  here  is  not  tacit,  but  communicable  and  overt. 
Salisbury  Plain  is  barren  of  criticism,  but  Stonehenge 
will  bear  a  discussion  antiquarian,  picturesque,  and  philo- 
sophical. In  setting  out  on  a  party  of  pleasure,  the  30 
first  consideration  always  is  where  we  shall  go  to:  in 
taking  a  solitary  ramble,  the  question  is  what  we  shall 
meet  with  by  the  way.  "The  mind  is  its  own  place"; 
nor  are  we  anxious  to  arrive  at  the  end  of  our  journey. 


io8  William  Hazlitt 

I  can  myself  do  the  honors  indifferently  well  to  works  of 
art  and  curiosity.  I  once  took  a  party  to  Oxford  with 
no  mean  eclat — shewed  them  that  seat  of  the  Muses  at 
a  distance, 

5  "With  glistering  spires  and  pinnacles  adorn'd" — 

descanted  on  the  learned  air  that  breathes  from  the  grassy 
quadrangles  and  stone  walls  of  halls  and  colleges — 'Was  at 
home  in  the  Bodleian;  and  at  Blenheim  quite  super- 
seded the  powdered  Cicerone  that  attended  us,  and  that 

lo  pointed  in  vain  with  his  wand  to  commonplace  beauties 
in  matchless  pictures. — As  another  exception  to  the  above 
reasoning,  I  should  not  feel  confident  in  venturing  on  a 
journey  in  a  foreign  country  without  a  companion.  I 
should  want  at  intervals  to  hear  the  sound  of  my  own 

15  language.  There  is  an  involuntary  antipathy  in  the 
mind  of  an  Englishman  to  foreign  manners  and  notions 
that  requires  the  assistance  of  social  sympathy  to  carry 
it  off.  As  the  distance  from  home  increases,  this  relief, 
which  was  at  first  a  luxury,  becomes  a  passion  and  an 

20  appetite.  A  person  would  almost  feel  stifled  to  find 
himself  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia  without  friends  and 
countrymen:  there  must  be  allowed  to  be  something  in 
the  view  of  Athens  or  old  Rome  that  claims  the  utterance 
of  speech;  and  I  own  that  the  pyramids  are  too  mighty 

n5  for  any  single  contemplation.  In  such  situations,  so 
opposite  to  all  one's  ordinary  train  of  ideas,  one  seems  a 
species  by  one's-self,  a  limb  torn  off  from  society,  unless 
one  can  meet  with  instant  fellowship  and  support. — 'Yet 
I  did  not  feel  this  want  or  craving  very  pressing  once, 

30  when  I  first  set  my  foot  on  the  laughing  shores  of  France. 
Calais  was  peopled  with  novelty  and  delight.  The  con- 
fused, busy  murmur  of  the  place  was  like  oil  and  wine 
poured  into  my  ears;  nor  did  the  mariners'  hymn,  which 


On  Going  a  Journey  109 

was  sung  from  the  top  of  an  old  crazy  vessel  in  the  har- 
bor, as  the  sun  went  down,  send  an  alien  sound  into  my 
soul.  I  only  breathed  the  air  of  general  humanity.  I 
walked  over  "the  vine-covered  hills  and  gay  regions  of 
France,"  erect  and  satisfied;  for  the  image  of  man  was  5 
not  cast  down  and  chained  to  the  foot  of  arbitrary  thrones : 
I  was  at  no  loss  for  language,  for  that  of  all  the  great 
schools  of  painting  was  open  to  me.  The  whole  is 
vanished  like  a  shade.  Pictures,  heroes,  glory,  freedom, 
all  are  fled:  nothing  remains  but  the  Bourbons  and  the  10 
French  people  1— There  is  undoubtedly  a  sensation  in 
,  traveling  into  foreign  parts  that  is  to  be  had  nowhere 
else:  but  it  is  more  pleasing  at  the  time  than  lasting. 
It  is  too  remote  from  our  habitual  associations  to  be  a 
common  topic  of  discourse  or  reference,  and,  like  a  dream  15 
or  another  state  of  existence,  does  not  piece  into  our 
daily  modes  of  life.  It  is  an  animated  but  a  momentary 
hallucination.  It  demands  an  effort  to  exchange  our 
actual  for  our  ideal  identity;  and  to  feel  the  pulse  of  our 
old  transports  revive  very  keenly,  we  must  "jump"  all  20 
our  present  comforts  and  connections.  Our  romantic  and 
itinerant  character  is  not  to  be  domesticated.  Dr. 
Johnson  remarked  how  little  foreign  travel  added  to  the 
facilities  of  conversation  in  those  who  had  been  abroad. 
In  fact,  the  time  we  have  spent  there  is  both  delightful  25 
and  in  one  sense  instructive;  but  it  appears  to  be  cut  out 
of  our  substantial,  downright  existence,  and  never  to 
join  kindly  on  to  it.  We  are  not  the  same,  but  another, 
and  perhaps  more  enviable  individual,  all  the  time  we  are 
out  of  our  own  country.  We  are  lost  to  ourselves,  as  well  30 
as  our  friends.     So  the  poet  somewhat  quaintly  sings, 

"Out  of  my  country  and  myself  I  go." 
Those  who  wish  to  forget  painful  thoughts,  do  well  to 


110  Wnilam  Hazlitt 

absent  themselves  for  a  while  from  the  ties  and  objects 
that  recall  them:  but  we  can  be  said  only  to  fulfil  our 
destiny  in  the  place  that  gave  us  birth.  I  should  on 
this  account  like  well  enough  to  spend  the  whole  of  my 
5  life  in  traveling  abroad,  if  I  could  anywhere  borrow 
another  life  to  spend  afterward  at  home! — ■ 

ON  READING  OLD  BOOKS 

I  HATE  to  read  new  books.  There  are  twenty  or 
thirty  volumes  that  I  have  read  over  and  over  again, 
and  these  are  the  only  ones  that  I  have  any  desire  ever 

lo  to  read  at  all.  It  was  a  long  time  before  I  could  bring 
myself  to  sit  down  to  the  Tales  of  My  Landlord,  but  now 
that  author's  works  have  made  a  considerable  addition 
to  my  scanty  library.  I  am  told  that  some  of  Lady 
Morgan's  are  good,  and  have  been  recommended  to  look 

15  into  Anastasins;  but  I  have  not  yet  ventured  upon  that 
task.    A  lady,  the  other  day,  could  not  refrain  from  ex- 

.  pressing  her  surprise  to  a  friend  who  said  he  had  been 
reading  Delphinc:  she  asked  if  it  had  not  been  published 
some  time  back.     Women  judge  of  books  as  they  do 

20  of  fashions  or  complexions,  which  are  admired  only  "in 
their  newest  gloss."  That  is  not  my  way.  I  am  not 
one  of  those  who  trouble  the  circulating  libraries  much, 
or  pester  the  book-sellers  for  mail-coach  copies  of  stand- 
ard periodical  publications.     I  cannot  say  that  I  am 

25  greatly  addicted  to  black-letter,  but  I  profess  myself 
well  versed  in  the  marble  bindings  of  Andrew  Millar, 
in  the  middle  of  the  last  century;  nor  does  my  taste  re- 
volt at  Thurloe's  State  Papers  in  Russia  leather,  or  an 
ample  impression  of  Sir  William  Temple's  Essays,  with 

30  a  portrait  after  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  in  front.  I  do  not 
think  altogether  the  worse  of  a  book  for  having  survived 


On  Reading  Old  Books  III 

the  author  a  generation  or  two.  I  have  more  confidence 
in  the  dead  than  the  Hving.  Contemporary  writers  may 
generally  be  divided  into  two  classes — 'One's  friends  or 
one's  foes.  Of  the  first  we  are  compelled  to  think  too 
well,  and  of  the  last  we  are  disposed  to  think  too  ill,  to  5 
receive  much  genuine  pleasure  from  the  perusal  or  to 
judge  fairly  of  the  merits  of  either.  One  candidate  for 
literary  fame,  who  happens  to  be  of  our  acquaintance, 
writes  finely  and  like  a  man  of  genius,  but  unfortunately 
has  a  foolish  face,  which  spoils  a  deHcate  passage;  10 
another  inspires  us  with  the  highest  respect  for  his  per- 
sonal talents  and  character,  but  does  not  quite  come  up 
to  our  expectations  in  print.  All  these  contradictions 
and  petty  details  interrupt  the  calm  current  of  our 
reflections.  If  you  want  to  know  what  any  of  the  authors  1 5 
were  who  lived  before  our  time  and  are  still  objects  of 
anxious  inquiry,  you  have  only  to  look  into  their  works. 
But  the  dust  and  smoke  and  noise  of  modern  literature 
have  nothing  in  common  with  the  pure,  silent  air  of 
immortality.  20 

When  I  take  up  a  work  that  I  have  read  before  (the 
oftener  the  better),  I  know  what  I  have  to  expect.  The 
satisfaction  is  not  lessened  by  being  anticipated.  When 
the  entertainment  is  altogether  new,  I  sit  down  to  it  as 
I  should  to  a  strange  dish — turn  and  pick  out  a  bit  here  25 
and  there,  and  am  in  doubt  what  to  think  of  the  composi- 
tion. There  is  a  want  of  confidence  and  security  to 
second  appetite.  New-fangled  books  are  also  like  made 
dishes  in  this  respect,  that  they  are  generally  little  else 
than  hashes  and  rifaccimentos  of  what  has  been  served  30 
up  entire,  and  in  a  more  natural  state,  at  other  times. 
Besides,  in  thus  turning  to  a  well-known  author  there  is 
not  only  an  assurance  that  my  time  will  not  be  thrown 
away,  or  my  palate  nauseated  with  the  most  insipid 


112  William  Hazlitt 

or  vilest  trash,  but  I  shake  hands  with  and  look  an  old, 
tried,  and  valued  friend  in  the  face,  compare  notes,  and 
chat  the  hours  away.  It  is  true  we  form  dear  friendships 
with  such  ideal  guests — dearer,  alas,  and  more  lasting 
5  than  those  with  our  most  intimate  acquaintance.  In 
reading  a  book  which  is  an  old  favorite  with  me  (say  the 
first  novel  I  ever  read)  I  not  only  have  the  pleasure  of 
imagination  and  of  a  critical  relish  of  the  work,  but  the 
pleasures  of  memory  added  to  it.     It  recalls  the  same 

lo  feelings  and  associations  which  I  had  in  first  reading 
it  and  which  I  can  never  have  again  in  any  other  way. 
Standard  productions  of  this  kind  are  links  in  the  chain 
of  our  conscious  being.  They  bind  together  the  different 
scattered  divisions  of  our  personal  identity.     They  are 

15  landmarks  and  guides  in  our  journey  through  life.  They 
are  pegs  and  loops  on  which  we  can  hang  up,  or  from 
which  we  can  take  down,  at  pleasure,  the  wardrobe  of  a 
moral  imagination,  the  relics  of  our  best  affections,  the 
tokens  and  records  of  our  happiest  hours.     They  are 

20  "for  thoughts  and  for  remembrance."  They  are  like 
Fortunatus's  wishing-cap — they  give  us  the  best  riches, 
those  of  fancy,  and  transport  us,  not  over  half  the  globe, 
but  (which  is  better)  over  half  our  lives,  at  a  word's 
notice. 

25  My  father  Shandy  solaced  himself  with  Bruscambille, 
Give  me  for  this  purpose  a  volume  of  Peregrine  Pickle  or 
Tom  Jones.  Open  either  of  them  anywhere — at  the 
Memoirs  of  Lady  Vane,  or  the  adventures  at  the  mas- 
querade with  Lady  Bellaston,  or  the  disputes  between 

30  Thwackum  and  Square,  or  the  escape  of  Molly  Seagrim, 
or  the  incident  of  Sophia  and  her  muff,  or  the  edifying 
prolixity  of  her  aunt's  lecture — and  there  I  find  the  same 
delightful,  busy,  bustling  scene  as  ever,  and  feel  myself 
the  same  as  when  I  was  first  introduced  into  the  midst 


On  Reading  Old  Books  113 

of  it.  Nay,  sometimes  the  sight  of  an  odd  volume  of 
these  good  old  English  authors  on  a  stall,  or  the  name 
lettered  on  the  back  among  others  on  the  shelves  of  a 
library,  answers  the  purpose,  revives  the  whole  train  of 
ideas,  and  sets  "the  puppets  dallying."  Twenty  years  5 
are  struck  off  the  list,  and  I  am  a  child  again.  A  sage 
philosopher,  who  was  not  a  very  wise  man,  said  that  he 
should  like  very  well  to  be  young  again  if  he  could  take 
his  experience  along  with  him.  This  ingenious  person 
did  not  seem  to  be  aware,  by  the  gravity  of  his  remark,  10 
that  the  great  advantage  of  being  young  is  to  be  without 
this  weight  of  experience,  which  he  would  fain  place  upon 
the  shoulders  of  youth  and  which  never  comes  too  late 
with  years.  O  what  a  privilege  to  be  able  to  let  this 
hump,  like  Christian's  burden,  drop  from  off  one's  15 
back,  and  transport  oneself,  by  the  help  of  a  little  musty 
duodecimo,  to  the  time  when  "ignorance  was  bliss,"  and 
when  we  first  got  a  peep  at  the  raree-show  of  the  world 
through  the  glass  of  fiction,  gazing  at  mankind,  as  we 
do  at  wild  beasts  in  a  menagerie,  through  the  bars  of  20 
their  cages,  or  at  curiosities  in  a  museum,  that  we  must 
not  touch!  For  myself,  not  only  are  the  old  ideas  of 
the  contents  of  the  work  brought  back  to  my  mind  in 
all  their  vividness,  but  the  old  associations  of  the  faces 
and  persons  of  those  I  then  knew,  as  they  were  in  their  25 
lifetime — the  place  where  I  sat  to  read  the  volume,  the 
day  when  I  got  it,  the  feeling  of  the  air,  the  fields,  the 
sky — return,  and  all  my  early  impressions  with  them. 
This  is  better  to  me — -those  places,  those  times,  those 
persons,  and  those  feelings  that  come  across  me  as  I  30 
retrace  the  story  and  devour  the  page,  are  to  me  better 
far  than  the  wet  sheets  of  the  last  new  novel  from  the 
Ballantyne  press,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Minerva  press 
in  Leadenhall  Street.     It  is  like  visiting  the  scenes  of 


114  William  Hazlitt 

early  youth.     I  think  of  the  time  ''when  I  was  in  my 
father's  house,  and  my  path  ran  down  with  butter  and 
honey" — when  I  was  a  little  thoughtless  child,  and  had 
no  other  wish  or  care  but  to  con  my  daily  task  and  be 
5  happy.     Tom  Jones,  I  remember,  was  the  first  work  that 
broke  the  spell.     It  came  down  in  numbers  once  a  fort- 
night, in  Cooke's  pocket-edition,  embellished  with  cuts. 
I  had  hitherto  read  only  in  school-books  and  a  tiresome 
ecclesiastical  history  (with  the  exception  of  Mrs.  Rad- 
io cliffe's  Romance  of  the  Forest) ;  but  this  had  a  different 
relish  with  it — "sweet  in  the  mouth,"  though  not  "bit- 
ter in  the  belly."     It  smacked  of  the  world  I  lived  in 
and  in  which  I  was  to  live,  and  showed  me  groups, "gay 
creatures"  not  "of  the  element"  but  of  the  earth,  not 
15  "living  in  the  clouds"  but  travehng  the  same  road  that 
I  did — some  that  had  passed  on  before  me,  and  others 
that  might  soon  overtake  me.     My  heart  had  palpitated 
at  the  thoughts  of  a  boarding-school  ball,  or  gala-day  at 
midsummer  or  Christmas;  but  the  world  I  had  found  out 
20  in  Cooke's  edition  of  the  British  Novelists  was  to  me  a 
dance  through  life,  a  perpetual  gala-day.     The  sixpenny 
numbers  of  this  work  regularly  contrived  to  leave  off 
just  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  and  in  the  nick  of  a 
story.    .    .    .     With  what  eagerness  I  used  to  look  for- 
25  ward  to  the  next  number,  and  open  the  prints!     Ah, 
never  again  shall  I  feel  the  enthusiastic  delight  with 
which  I  gazed  at  the  figures,  and  anticipated  the  story 
and  adventures  of  Major  Bath  and  Commodore  Trun- 
nion, of  Trim  and  my  Uncle  Toby,  of  Don  Quixote  and 
30  Sancho  and  Dapple,  of  Gil  Bias  and  Dame  Lorenza  Sep- 
hora,  of  Laura  and  the  fair  Lucretia,  whose  lips  open  and 
shut  like  buds  of  roses.     To  what  nameless  ideas  did 
they  give  rise,  with  what  airy  delights  I  filled  up  the 
outlines,  as  I  hung  in  silence  over  the  page.    Let  me  still 


On  Reading  Old  Books  115 

recall  them,  that  they  may  breathe  fresh  life  into  me 
and  that  I  may  live  that  birthday  of  thought  and  ro- 
mantic pleasure  over  again !  Talk  of  the  ideal  1  This  is 
the  only  true  ideal — the  heavenly  tints  of  fancy  reflected 
in  the  bubbles  that  float  upon  the  spring-tide  of  human  5 
Hfe. 

"O  Memory,  shield  me  from  the  world's  poor  strife, 
And  give  those  scenes  thine  everlasting  life!" 

The  paradox  with  which  I  set  out  is,  I  hope,  less  start- 
ling than  it  was;  the  reader  will,  by  this  time,  have  been  10 
let  into  my  secret.     Much  about  the  same  time,  or  I 
believe  rather  earlier,  I  took  a  particular  satisfaction  in 
reading  Chubb 's  Tracts,  and  I  often  think  I  will  get  them 
again  to  wade  through.     There  is  a  high  gusto  of  polem- 
ical divinity  in  them;  and  you  fancy  that  you  hear  a  15 
club  of  shoemakers  at  Salisbury  debating  a  disputable 
text  from  one  of  St.  Paul's  epistles  in  a  workmanlike 
style,  with  equal  shrewdness  and  pertinacity.     I  can- 
not say  much  for  my  metaphysical  studies,  into  which 
I  launched  shortly  after  with  great  ardor,  so  as  to  make  20 
a  toil  of  a  pleasure.     I  was  presently  entangled  in  the 
briers  and  thorns  of  subtle  distinctions — of  "fate,  free- 
will, fore-knowledge  absolute,"  though  I  cannot  add  that 
"in  their  wandering  mazes  I  found  no  end,"  for  I  did 
arrive  at  some  very  satisfactory  and  potent  conclusions;  25 
nor  will  I  go  so  far,  however  ungrateful  the  subject 
might   seem,   as  to  exclaim  with   Marlowe's   Faustus, 
"Would  I  had  never  seen  Wittenberg,  never  read  book  " — 
that  is,  never  studied  such  authors  as  Hartley,  Hume, 
Berkeley,   etc.    Locke's  Essay  on  the  Human    Under-  30 
standing  is,  however,  a  work  from  which  I  never  derived 
either  pleasure  or  profit;  and  Hobbes,  dry  and  powerful 
as  he  is,  I  did  not  read  till  long  afterward.     I  read  a 


Ii6  William  Hazlitt 

few  poets,  which  did  not  much  hit  my  taste — for  I  would 
have  the  reader  understand  I  am  deficient  in  the  faculty 
of  imagination;  but  I  fell  early  upon  French  romances 
and  philosophy,  and  devoured  them  tooth- and-nail. 
5  Many  a  dainty  repast  have  I  made  of  the  New  Elo'isc — 
the  description  of  the  kiss;  the  excursion  on  the  water; 
the  letter  of  St.  Preux,  recalling  the  time  of  their  first 
loves;  and  the  account  of  Julia's  death:  these  I  read  over 
and  over  again  with  unspeakable  delight  and  wonder. 

lo  Some  years  after,  when  I  met  with  this  work  again,  I 
found  I  had  lost  nearly  my  whole  relish  for  it  (except 
some  few  parts),  and  was,  I  remember,  very  much  mor- 
tified with  the  change  in  my  taste,  which  I  sought  to 
attribute  to  the  smallness  and  gilt  edges  of  the  edition  I 

15  had  bought,  and  its  being  perfumed  with  rose-leaves. 
Nothing  could  exceed  the  gravity,  the  solemnity,  with 
which  I  carried  home  and  read  the  dedication  to  the 
Social  Contract,  with  some  other  pieces  of  the  same  author, 
which  I  had  picked  up  at  a  stall  in  a  coarse  leathern 

20  cover.  Of  the  Confessions  I  have  spoken  elsewhere,  and 
may  repeat  what  I  have  said:  "Sweet  is  the  dew  of 
their  memory,  and  pleasant  the  balm  of  their  recollec- 
tion." Their  beauties  are  not  "scattered  like  stray  gifts 
o'er  the  earth,"  but  sown  thick  on  the  page,  rich  and  rare. 

25  I  wish  I  had  never  read  the  Emilius,  or  read  it  with  less 
implicit  faith.  I  had  no  occasion  to  pamper  my  natural 
aversion  to  affectation  or  pretence,  by  romantic  and  arti- 
ficial means.  I  had  better  have  formed  myself  on  the 
model  of  Sir  Fopling  Flutter.     There  is  a  class  of  persons 

30  whose  virtues  and  most  shining  qualities  sink  in,  and 
are  concealed  by,  an  absorbent  ground  of  modesty  and 
reserve;  and  such  a  one  I  do,  without  vanity,  profess 
myself.  Now,  these  are  the  very  persons  who  are  likely 
to  attach  themselves  to  the  character  of  Emilius,  and  of 


On  Reading  Old  Books  117 

whom  it  is  sure  to  be  the  bane.  This  dull,  phlegmatic, 
retiring  humor  is  not  in  a  fair  way  to  be  corrected,  but 
confirmed  and  rendered  desperate,  by  being  in  that  work 
held  up  as  an  object  of  imitation,  as  an  example  of  sim- 
plicity and  magnanimity,  by  coming  upon  us  with  all  5 
the  recommendations  of  novelty,  surprise,  and  superi- 
ority to  the  prejudices  of  the  world,  by  being  stuck  upon 
a  pedestal,  made  amiable,  dazzling,  a  leurre  de  dupe. 
The  reliance  on  solid  worth  which  it  inculcates,  the  pref- 
erence of  sober  truth  to  gaudy  tinsel,  hangs  like  a  mill-  10 
stone  round  the  neck  of  the  imagination — "a  load  to 
sink  a  navy," — impedes  our  progress,  and  blocks  up 
every  prospect  in  life.  A  man,  to  get  on,  to  be  success- 
ful, conspicuous,  applauded,  should  not  retire  upon  the 
center  of  his  conscious  resources,  but  be  always  at  the  15 
circumference  of  appearances.  He  must  envelop  him- 
self in  a  halo  of  mystery — he  must  ride  in  an  equipage  of 
opinion — he  must  walk  with  a  train  of  self-conceit  follow- 
ing him — he  must  not  strip  himself  to  a  buff-jerkin,  to 
the  doublet  and  hose  of  his  real  merits,  but  must  surround  20 
himself  with  a  cortege  of  prejudices,  like  the  signs  of  the 
Zodiac — he  must  seem  anything  but  what  he  is,  and 
then  he  may  pass  for  anything  he  pleases.  The  world 
love  to  be  amused  by  hollow  professions,  to  be  deceived 
by  flattering  appearances,  to  live  in  a  state  of  halluci-  25 
nation,  and  can  forgive  everything  but  the  plain,  down- 
right, simple,  honest  truth — such  as  we  see  it  chalked  out 
in  the  character  of  Emilius. — To  return  from  this  digres- 
sion, which  is  a  little  out  of  place  here. 

Books  have  in  a  great  measure  lost  their  power  over  30 
me,  nor  can  I  revive  the  same  interest  in  them  as  for- 
merly.    I  perceive  when  a  thing  is  good,  rather  than  feel 
i'L     It  is  true, 

"Marcian  Colonn-a  is  a  dainty  book"; 


ii8  William  Hazlitt 

and  the  reading  of  Mr.  Keats's  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  lately 
made  me  regret  that  I  was  not  young  again.  The  beau- 
tiful and  tender  images  there  conjured  up  "come  like 
shadows — so  depart."  The  "  tiger-moth's  wings,"  which 
5  he  has  spread  over  his  rich  poetic  blazonry,  just  flit 
across  my  fancy;  the  gorgeous  twilight  window  which  he 
has  painted  over  again  in  his  verse,  to  me  "blushes" 
almost  in  vain  "with  blood  of  queens  and  kings."  I 
know  how  I  should  have  felt  at  one  time  in  reading  such 

lo  passages;  and  that  is  all.  The  sharp,  luscious  flavor,  the 
fine  aroma,  is  fled,  and  nothing  but  the  stalk,  the  bran, 
the  husk  of  literature  is  left.  If  anyone  were  to  ask  me 
what  I  read  now,  I  might  answer  with  my  Lord  Hamlet  in 
the  play,  "Words,  words,  words."     "What  is  the  mat- 

15  ter?"  "Nothing" — they  have  scarce  a  meaning.  But 
it  was  not  always  so.  There  was  a  time  when  to  my 
thinking  every  word  was  a  flower  or  a  pearl,  like  those 
which  dropped  from  the  mouth  of  the  little  peasant-girl 
in  the  fairy  tale,  or  like  those  that  fall  from  the  great 

20  preacher  in  the  Caledonian  Chapel.  I  drank  of  the 
stream  of  knowledge  that  tempted  but  did  not  mock  my 
lips,  as  of  the  river  of  life,  freely.  How  eagerly  I  slaked 
my  thirst  of  German  sentiment,  "as  the  hart  that  panteth 
for  the  water-springs";  how  I  bathed  and  revelled,  and 

25  added  my  floods  of  tears  to  Goethe's  Sorrows  of  Werter 
and  to  Schiller's  Robbers. 

"Giving  my  stock  of  more  to  that  which  had  too  much." 

I  read  and  assented  with  all  my  soul  to  Coleridge's  fine 
sonnet  beginning, 

,Q  "Schiller,  that  hour  I  would  have  wished  to  die, 

If  through  the  shuddering  midnight  I  had  sent, 
From  the  dark  dungeon  of  the  tow'r,  time-rent, 
That  fearful  voice,  a  famish'd  father's  cry!" 


On  Reading  Old  Books  1 19 

I  believe  I  may  date  my  insight  into  the  mysteries  of 
poetry  from  the  commencement  of  my  acquaintance  with 
the  authors  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads;  at  least,  my  discrimi- 
nation of  the  higher  sorts,  not  my  predilection  for  such 
writers  as  Goldsmith  or  Pope:  nor  do  I  imagine  they  will  5 
say  I  got  my  liking  for  the  novelists  or  the  comic  writers, 
for  the  characters  of  Valentine,  Tattle,  or  Miss  Prue, 
from  them.  If  so,  I  must  have  got  from  them  what  they 
never  had  themselves.  In  points  where  poetic  diction 
and  conception  are  concerned,  I  may  be  at  a  loss  and  10 
liable  to  be  imposed  upon ;  but  in  forming  an  estimate  of 
passages  relating  to  common  life  and  manners  I  cannot 
think  I  am  a  plagiarist  from  any  man.  I  there  "know 
my  cue  without  a  prompter."  I  may  say  of  such 
studies,  '^intiis  et  in  cute.'"  I  am  just  able  to  admire  15 
those  literal  touches  of  observation  and  description  which 
persons  of  loftier  pretensions  overlook  and  despise. 
I  think  I  comprehend  something  of  the  characteristic  part 
of  Shakespeare;  and  in  him,  indeed,  all  is  characteristic, 
even  the  nonsense  and  poetry.  I  believe  it  was  the  cele-  20 
brated  Sir  Humphrey  Davy  who  used  to  say  that  Shake- 
speare was  rather  a  metaphysician  than  a  poet.  At  any 
rate,  it  was  not  ill  said.  I  wish  that  I  had  sooner  known 
the  dramatic  writers  contemporary  with  Shakespeare,  for 
in  looking  them  over,  about  a  year  ago,  I  almost  revived  25 
my  old  passion  for  reading  and  my  old  delight  in  books, 
though  they  were  very  nearly  new  to  me.  The  periodical 
essayists  I  read  long  ago.  The  Spectator  I  liked  extremely, 
l)ut  The  Tatler  took  my  fancy  most.  I  read  the  others 
soon  after — The  Rambler,  The  Adventurer,  The  World,  30 
The  Connoisseur;  1  was  not  sorry  to  get  to  the  end  of  them, 
and  have  no  desire  to  go  regularly  through  them  again.  I 
consider  myself  a  thorough  adept  in  Richardson.  I  like 
the  longest  of  his  novels  best,  and  think  no  part  of  them 


I20  William  Hazlitt 

tedious;  nor  should  I  ask  to  have  anything  better  to  do 
than  to  read  them  from  beginning  to  end,  to  take  them 
up  when  I  chose  and  lay  them  down  when  I  was  tired, 
in  some  old  family  mansion  in  the  country,  till  every 
5  word  and  syllable  relating  to  the  bright  Clarissa,  the 
divine  Clementina,  the  beautiful  Pamela,  "with  every 
trick  and  line  of  their  sweet  favor,"  were  once  more 
"graven  in  my  heart's  table."  I  have  a  sneaking  kind- 
ness for  Mackenzie's  Jnlia  de  Roubigne — for  the  deserted 

lo  mansion,  and  straggling  gilliflowers  on  the  mouldering 
garden  wall;  and  still  more  for  his  Man  of  Feeling — 
not  that  it  is  better,  nor  so  good,  but  at  the  time  I  read 
it  I  sometimes  thought  of  the  heroine.  Miss  Walton,  and 
of  Miss together,  and  "that  ligament,  fine  as  it  was, 

IS  was  never  broken." — One  of  the  poets  that  I  have  always 
read  with  most  pleasure,  and  can  wander  about  in  forever 
with  a  sort  of  voluptuous  indolence,  is  Spenser;  and  I 
like  Chaucer  even  better.  The  only  writer  among  the 
Italians  I  can  pretend  to  any  knowledge  of  is  Boccaccio, 

20  and  of  him  I  cannot  express  half  my  admiration.  His 
story  of  the  hawk  I  could  read  and  think  of  from  day  to 
day,  just  as  I  would  look  at  a  picture  of  Titian's. 

I  remember,  as  long  ago  as  the  year  1798,  going  to  a 
neighboring  town  (Shrewsbury,  where  Farquhar  has  laid 

25  the  plot  of  his  Recruiting  Officer)  and  bringing  home  with 
me,  "at  one  proud  swoop,"  a  copy  of  Milton's  Paradise 
Lost  and  another  of  Burke's  Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution — both  which  I  have  still;  and  I  still  recollect, 
when  I  see  the  covers,  the  pleasure  with  which  I  dipped 

30  into  them  as  I  returned  with  my  double  prize.  I  was 
set  up  for  one  while.  That  time  is  past,  "with  all  its 
giddy  raptures";  but  I  am  still  anxious  to  preserve  its 
memory,  "embalmed  with  odors."  With  respect  to  the 
first  of  these  works,  I  would  be  permitted  to  remark  here. 


On  Reading  Old  Books  121 

in  passing,  that  it  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  German 
criticism  which  has  since  been  started  against  the  char- 
acter of  Satan  (viz.,  that  it  is  not  one  of  disgusting 
deformity,  or  pure,  defeated  maHce)  to  say  that  Milton 
has  there  drawn,  not  the  abstract  principle  of  evil,  not  a  5 
devil  incarnate,  but  a  fallen  angel.  This  is  the  Scriptural 
account,  and  the  poet  has  followed  it.  We  may  safely 
retain  such  passages  as  that  well-known  one, 

"His  form  had  not  yet  lost 
All  her  original  brightness;  nor  appear'd  lO 

Less  than  archangel  ruin'd,  and  the  excess 
Of  glory  obscur'd," 

for  the  theory  which  is  opposed  to  them  "falls  flat  upon 
the  grunsel  edge  and  shames  its  worshippers."     Let  us 
hear  no  more,  then,  of  this  monkish  cant  and  bigoted  15 
outcry,  for  the  restoration  of  the  horns  and  tail  of  the 
devil. 

Again,  as  to  the  other  work,  Burke's  Reflections,  I 
took  a  particular  pride  and  pleasure  in  it,  and  read  it  to 
myself  and  others  for  months  afterward.  I  had  reason  20 
for  my  prejudice  in  favor  of  this  author.  To  understand 
an  adversary  is  some  praise;  to  admire  him  is  more.  I 
thought  I  did  both;  I  knew  I  did  one.  From  the  first 
time  I  ever  cast  my  eyes  on  anything  of  Burke's  (which 
was  an  extract  from  his  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord,  in  a  three-  25 
times-a-week  paper.  The  St.  James's  Chronicle,  in  1796) 
I  said  to  myself,  "This  is  true  eloquence:  this  is  a  man 
pouring  out  his  mind  on  paper."  All  other  style  seemed 
to  me  pedantic  and  impertinent.  Dr.  Johnson's  was 
walking  on  stilts;  and  even  Junius's  (who  was  at  that  time  30 
a  favorite  with  me),  with  all  his  terseness,  shrunk  up 
into  little  antithetic  points  and  well-trimmed  sentences. 
But  Burke's  style  was  forked  and  playful  as  the  lightning, 


122  William  Hazlitt 

crested  like  the  serpent.  He  delivered  plain  things  on  a 
plain  ground;  but  when  he  rose,  there  was  no  end  of  his 
flights  and  circumgyrations — and  in  this  very  Letter  "he, 
like  an  eagle  in  a  dove-cote,  fluttered  his  Volscians" 
5  (the  Duke  of  Bedford  and  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale)  "in 
Corioli."  I  did  not  care  for  his  doctrines.  I  was  then, 
and  am  still,  proof  against  their  contagion;  but  I  admired 
the  author,  and  was  considered  as  not  a  very  staunch 
partisan  of  the  opposite  side,  though  I  thought  myself 

lo  that  an  abstract  proposition  was  one  thing,  a  masterly 
transition,  a  brilliant  metaphor,  another.  I  conceived, 
too,  that  he  might  be  wrong  in  his  main  argument,  and 
yet  deliver  fifty  truths  in  arriving  at  a  false  conclusion. 
I  remember  Coleridge  assuring  me,  as  a  poetical  and 

15  political  set-off  to  my  skeptical  admiration,  that  Words- 
worth had  written  an  Essay  on  Marriage  w^hich,  for 
manly  thought  and  nervous  expression,  he  deemed  in- 
comparably superior.  As  I  had  not,  at  that  time,  seen 
any  specimens  of  Mr,  Wordsworth's  prose  style,  I  could 

20  not  express  my  doubts  on  the  subject.  If  there  are 
greater  prose-writers  than  Burke,  they  either  lie  out  of 
my  course  of  study  or  are  beyond  my  sphere  of  com- 
prehension. I  am  too  old  to  be  a  convert  to  a  new 
mythology   of   genius.     The   niches   are   occupied,    the 

25  tables  are  full.  If  such  is  still  my  admiration  of  this 
man's  misapplied  powers,  what  must  it  have  been  at  a 
time  when  I  myself  was  in  vain  trying,  year  after  year, 
to  write  a  single  essay,  nay,  a  single  page  or  sentence; 
when  I  regarded  the  wonders  of  his  pen  with  the  longing 

30  eyes  of  one  who  was  dumb  and  a  changeling;  and  when  to 
be  able  to  convey  the  slightest  conception  of  my  meaning 
to  others  in  words  was  the  height  of  an  almost  hopeless 
ambition.  But  I  never  measured  others'  excellences 
by  my  own  defects,  though  a  sense  of  my  own  incapacity 


On  Reading  Old  Books  123 

and  of  the  steep,  impassable  ascent  from  me  to  them 
made  me  regard  them  with  greater  awe  and  fondness. 

I  have  thus  run  through  most  of  my  early  studies  and 
favorite  authors,  some  of  whom  I  have  since  criticised 
more  at  large.  Whether  those  observations  will  survive  5 
me  I  neither  know  nor  do  I  much  care;  but  to  the  works 
themselves,  "worthy  of  all  acceptation,"  and  to  the  feel- 
ings they  have  always  excited  in  me  since  I  could  dis- 
tinguish a  meaning  in  language,  nothing  shall  ever  pre- 
vent me  from  looking  back  with  gratitude  and  triumph.  10 
To  have  lived  in  the  cultivation  of  an  intimacy  with 
such  works,  and  to  have  familiarly  relished  such  names, 
is  not  to  have  lived  quite  in  vain. 

There  are  other  authors  whom  I  have  never  read,  and 
yet  whom  I  have  frequently  had  a  great  desire  to  read  15 
from  some  circumstance  relating  to  them.  Among 
these  is  Lord  Clarendon's  History  of  the  Grand  Re- 
bellion, after  which  I  have  a  hankering  from  hearing  it 
spoken  of  by  good  judges,  from  my  interest  in  the  events 
and  knowledge  of  the  characters  from  other  sources,  20 
and  from  having  seen  fine  portraits  of  most  of  them. 
I  like  to  read  a  well-penned  character,  and  Clarendon 
is  said  to  have  been  a  master  in  this  way.  I  should 
like  to  read  Froissart's  Chronicles,  Holinshed  and  Stowe, 
and  Fuller's  Worthies.  I  intend,  whenever  I  can,  to  25 
read  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  all  through.  There  are 
fifty-two  of  their  plays,  and  I  have  only  read  a  dozen 
or  fourteen  of  them.  A  Wife  for  a  Month  and  Thierry 
and  Theodoret  are,  I  am  told,  delicious,  and  I  can  believe 
it.  I  should  like  to  read  the  speeches  in  Thucydides,  30 
and  Guicciardini  's  History  of  Florence,  and  Don  Quixote 
in  the  original.  I  have  often  thought  of  reading  The 
Loves  of  Persiles  and  Sigismunda  and  the  Galatea  of  the 
same  author.     But  I  somehow  reserve  them,  Hke   "an- 


124  William  Hazlitt 

other  Yarrow."  I  should  also  like  to  read  the  last  new 
novel  (if  I  could  be  sure  it  was  so)  of  the  author  of 
Waverley;  no  one  would  be  more  glad  than  I  to  find  it 
the  best. 


THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY 

MEETING  WITH  COLERIDGE 

It  was,  I  think,  in  the  month  of  August,  but  certainly 
in  the  summer  season,  and  certainly  in  the  year  1807, 
that  I  first  saw  this  illustrious  man.  My  knowledge  of 
him  as  a  man  of  most  original  genius  began  about  the 
year  1799.  A  little  before  that  time  Wordsworth  had  5 
published  the  first  edition  (in  a  single  volume)  of  the 
Lyrical  Ballads,  and  into  this  had  been  introduced  Mr. 
Coleridge's  poem  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,  as  the  con- 
tribution of  an  anonymous  friend.  It  would  be  directing 
the  reader's  attention  too  much  to  myself  if  I  were  to  10 
linger  upon  this,  the  greatest  event  in  the  unfolding  of 
my  own  mind.  Let  me  say,  in  one  word,  that,  at  a  pe- 
riod when  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  writer  was  valued 
by  the  public — both  having  a  long  warfare  to  accomplish 
of  contumely  and  ridicule  before  they  could  rise  into  their  15 
present  estimation — 'I  found  in  these  poems  "the  ray  of 
a  new  morning,"  and  an  absolute  revelation  of  untrodden 
worlds  teeming  with  power  and  beauty  as  yet  unsuspected 
amongst  men.  I  may  here  mention  that,  precisely  at  the 
same  time,  Professor  Wilson,  entirely  unconnected  with  20 
myself,  and  not  even  known  to  me  until  ten  years  later, 
received  the  same  startling  and  profound  impressions 
from  the  same  volume.  With  feelings  of  reverential  inter- 
est, so  early  and  so  deep,  pointing  toward  two  contem- 
poraries, it  may  be  supposed  that  I  inquired  eagerly  after  25 

125 


126  Thomas  DeQuincey 

their  names.  But  these  inquiries  were  self-baffled;  the 
same  deep  feelings  which  prompted  my  curiosity  causing 
me  to  recoil  from  all  casual  opportunities  of  pushing  the 
inquiry,  as  too  generally  lying  amongst  those  who  gave 
5  no  sign  of  participating  in  my  feelings;  and,  extravagant 
as  this  may  seem,  I  revolted  with  as  much  hatred  from 
coupling  the  question  with  any  occasion  of  insult  to  the 
persons  whom  it  respected  as  a  primitive  Christian  from 
throwing  frankincense  upon  the  altars  of  Caesar,  or  a 

lo  lover  from  giving  up  the  name  of  his  beloved  to  the  coarse 
license  of  a  Bacchanahan  party.  It  is  laughable  to 
record  for  how  long  a  period  my  curiosity  in  this  particu- 
lar was  thus  self-defeated.  Two  years  passed  before  I 
ascertained  the  two  names.     Mr.  Wordsworth  published 

15  his  in  the  second  and  enlarged  edition  of  the  poems;  and 
for  Mr.  Coleridge's  I  was  "indebted"  to  a  private 
source;  but  I  discharged  that  debt  ill,  for  I  quarreled 
with  my  informant  for  what  I  considered  his  profane  way 
of  dealing  with  a  subject  so  hallowed  in  my  own  thoughts. 

20  After  this  I  searched,  east  and  west,  north  and  south,  for 
all  known  works  or  fragments  of  the  same  authors.  I 
had  read,  therefore,  as  respects  Mr.  Coleridge,  the  Alle- 
gory which  he  contributed  to  Mr.  Southey 's  Joan  of  Arc. 
I  had  read  his  fine  ode  entitled  France,  his  Ode  to  the 

25  Duchess  of  Devonshire,  and  various  other  contributions, 
more  or  less  interesting,  to  the  two  volumes  of  the 
Anthology  published  at  Bristol,  about  1799-1S00,  by  Mr. 
Southey;  and,  finally,  I  had,  of  course,  read  the  small 
volume  of  poems  pubUshed  under  his  own  name.     These, 

30  however,  as  a  juvenile  and  immature  collection,  made 
expressly  with  a  view  to  pecuniary  profit,  and  therefore 
courting  expansion  at  any  cost  of  critical  discretion,  had 
in  general  greatly  disappointed  me. 

Meantime,  it  had  crowned  the  interest  which  to  me 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  127 

invested  his  name,  that  about  the  year  1804  or  1805  I  had 
been  informed  by  a  gentlemen  from  the  English  Lakes, 
who  knew  him  as  a  neighbor,  that  he  had  for  some  time 
applied  his  whole  mind  to  metaphysics  and  psychology — ■ 
which  happened  to  be  my  own  absorbing  pursuit.  From  5 
1803  to  1808, 1  was  a  student  at  Oxford;  and,  on  the  first 
occasion  when  I  could  conveniently  have  sought  for  a 
personal  knowledge  of  one  whom  I  contemplated  with  so 
much  admiration,  I  was  met  by  a  painful  assurance  that 
he  had  quitted  England,  and  was  then  residing  at  Malta,  10 
in  the  quahty  of  secretary  to  the  Governor.  I  began  to 
inquire  about  the  best  route  to  Malta;  but,  as  any  route 
at  that  time  promised  an  inside  place  in  a  French  prison,  I 
reconciled  myself  to  waiting;  and  at  last,  happening  to 
visit  the  Bristol  Hot-wells  in  the  summer  of  1807,  I  had  15 
the  pleasure  to  hear  that  Coleridge  was  not  only  once 
more  upon  English  ground,  but  within  forty  and  odd  miles 
of  my  own  station.  In  that  same  hour  I  bent  my  way  to 
the  south;  and,  before  evening,  reaching  a  ferry  on  the 
river  Bridgewater,  at  a  village  called,  I  think,  Stogursey  20 
(i.e.,  Stoke  de  Courcy,  by  way  of  distinction  from  some 
other  Stoke),  I  crossed  it,  and  a  few  miles  farther  attained 
my  object — -viz.,  the  little  town  of  Nether  Stowey, 
amongst  the  Quantock  Hills.  Here  I  had  been  assured 
that  I  should  find  Mr.  Coleridge,  at  the  house  of  his  25 
old  friend  Mr.  Poole.  On  presenting  myself,  however, 
to  that  gentleman,  I  found  that  Coleridge  was  absent 
at  Lord  Egmont's,  an  elder  brother  (by  the  father's 
side)  of  Mr.  Perceval,  the  Prime  Minister,  assassinated 
five  years  later;  and,  as  it  was  doubtful  whether  he  might  3c 
not  then  be  on  the  wing  to  another  friend's  in  the  town 
of  Bridgewater,  I  consented  willingly,  until  his  motions 
should  be  ascertained,  to  stay  a  day  or  two  with  this 
Mr.  Poole — a  man  on  his  own  account  well  deserving 


128  Thomas  DcQuincey 

a  separate  notice;  for,  as  Coleridge  afterward  remarked 
to  me,  he  was  almost  an  ideal  model  for  a  useful  member 
of  Parhament.  I  found  him  a  stout,  plain-looking 
farmer,  leading  a  bachelor  Hfe,  in  a  rustic,  old-fashioned 
5  house;  the  house,  however,  upon  further  acquaintance, 
proving  to  be  amply  furnished  with  modern  luxuries, 
and  especially  with  a  good  library,  superbly  mounted  in 
all  departments  bearing  at  all  upon  poHtical  philosophy; 
and  the  farmer  turning  out  a  polished  and  hberal  EngHsh- 
lo  man,  who  had  traveled  extensively,  and  had  so  entirely 
dedicated  himself  to  the  service  of  his  humble  fellow- 
countrymen — the  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water 
in  this  southern  part  of  Somersetshire — that  for  many 
miles  round  he  was  the  general  arbiter  of  their  disputes, 
15  the  guide  and  counselor  of  their  difficulties;  besides 
being  appointed  executor  and  guardian  to  his  children 
by  every  third  man  who  died  in  or  about  the  town  of 
Nether  Stowey. 

The  first  morning  of  my  visit,  Mr.  Poole  was  so  kind 
20  as  to  propose,  knowing  my  admiration  of  Wordsworth, 
that  we  should  ride  over  to  Alfoxden — a  place  of  singular 
interest  to  myself,  as  having  been  occupied  in  his  un- 
married days  by  that  poet,  during  the  minority  of  Mr. 
St.  Aubyn,  its  present  youthful  proprietor.  At  this 
25  delightful  spot,  the  ancient  residence  of  an  ancient 
English  family,  and  surrounded  by  those  ferny  Quantock 
Hills  which  are  so  beautifully  glanced  at  in  the  poem  of 
Ruth,  Wordsworth,  accompanied  by  his  sister,  had 
passed  a  good  deal  of  the  interval  between  leaving  the 
30  university  (Cambridge)  and  the  period  of  his  final  settle- 
ment amongst  his  native  lakes  of  Westmoreland:  some 
allowance,  however,  must  be  made— but  how  much  I  do 
not  accurately  know — for  a  long  residence  in  France,  for 
a  short  one  in  North  Germany,  for  an  intermitting  one 


Meeting  with   Coleridge  129 

in  London,   and  for  a  regular  domestication  with  his 
sister  at  Race  Down  in  Dorsetshire. 

Returning  late  from  this  interesting  survey,  we  found 
ourselves  without  company  at  dinner;  and,  being  thus 
seated  tete-a-tete,  Mr.  Poole  propounded  the  following  5 
question  to  me,  which  I  mention  because  it  furnished  me 
with  the  first  hint  of  a  singular  infirmity  besetting  Cole- 
ridge's mind: — "Pray,  my  young  friend,  did  you  ever 
form  any  opinion,  or,  rather,  did  it  ever  happen  to  you 
to  meet  with  any  rational  opinion  or  conjecture  of  others,  10 
upon  that  most  revolting  dogma  of  Pythagoras  about 
beans?  You  know  what  I  mean:  that  monstrous  doc- 
trine in  which  he  asserts  that  a  man  might  as  well,  for 
the  wickedness  of  the  thing,  eat  his  own  grandmother 
as  meddle  with  beans."  15 

"Yes,"  I  replied;  "the  line  is,  I  believe,  in  the  Golden 
Verses.     I  remember  it  well." 

P. — '"True:  now,  our  dear  excellent  friend  Coleridge, 
than  whom  God  never  made  a  creature  more  divinely 
endowed,  yet,  strange  it  is  to  say,  sometimes  steals  from  20 
other  people,  just  as  you  or  I  might  do;  I  beg  your 
pardon — just  as  a  poor  creature  like  myself  might  do, 
that  sometimes  have  not  wherewithal  to  make  a  figure 
from  my  own  exchequer:  and  the  other  day,  at  a  dinner 
party,  this  question  arising  about  Pythagoras  and  his  25 
beans,  Coleridge  gave  us  an  interpretation  which,  from 
his  manner,  I  suspect  to  have  been  not  original.  Think, 
therefore,  if  you  have  anywhere  read  a  plausible 
solution." 

"I  have:  and  it  was  a  German  author.     This  German,  30 
understand,  is  a  poor  stick  of  a  man,  not  to  be  named 
on  the  same  day  with  Coleridge:  so  that,  if  Coleridge 
should  appear  to  have  robbed  him,  be  assured  that  he  has 
done  the  scamp  too  much  honor." 


130  Thomas  DeQuincey 

P.— "Well:  what  says  the  German?" 
"Why,  you  know  the  use  made  in  Greece  of  beans 
in  voting  and  balloting?  Well:  the  German  says  that 
Pythagoras  speaks  symbolically;  meaning  that  election- 
5  eering,  or,  more  generally,  all  interference  with  political 
intrigues,  is  fatal  to  a  philosopher's  pursuits  and  their 
appropriate  serenity.  Therefore,  says  he,  follower  of 
mine,  abstain  from  public  affairs  as  you  would  from 
parricide." 

10  P. — '"Well,  then,  Coleridge  has  done  the  scamp  too 
much  honor:  for,  by  Jove,  that  is  the  very  explanation 
he  gave  us!" 

Here  was  a  trait  of  Coleridge's  mind,  to  be  first  made 
known  to  me  by  his  best  friend,  and  first  published  to 

J. 5  the  world  by  me,  the  foremost  of  his  admirers!  But 
both  of  us  had  sufficient  reasons: — Mr.  Poole  knew  that, 
stumbled  on  by  accident,  such  a  discovery  would  be 
likely  to  impress  upon  a  man  as  yet  unacquainted  with 
Coleridge  a  most  injurious  jealousy  with  regard  to  all 

20  he  might  write:  whereas,  frankly  avowed  by  one  who 
knew  him  best,  the  fact  was  disarmed  of  its  sting;  since 
it  thus  became  evident  that,  where  the  case  had  been 
best  known  and  most  investigated,  it  had  not  operated 
to  his  serious  disadvantage.     On  the  same  argument — • 

25  to  forestall,  that  is  to  say,  other  discoverers,  who  would 
make  a  more  unfriendly  use  of  the  discovery — 'and  also 
as  matters  of  literary  curiosity,  I  shall  here  point  out  a 
few  others  of  Coleridge's  unacknowledged  obligations, 
noticed  by  myself  in  a  very  wide  course  of  reading. 

30  I.  The  Hymn  to  Chamotmi  is  an  expansion  of  a  short 
poem  in  stanzas,  upon  the  same  subject,  by  Frederica 
Brun,  a  female  poet  of  Germany,  previously  known  to 
the  world  under  her  maiden  name  of  Miinter.  The  mere 
framework  of  the  poem  is  exactly  the  same — an  appeal 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  13 1 

to  the  most  impressive  features  of  the  regal  mountain 
(Mont  Blanc),  adjuring  them  to  proclaim  their  author: 
the  torrent,  for  instance,  is  required  to  say  by  whom  it 
had  been  arrested  in  its  headlong  raving,  and  stiffened, 
as  by  the  petrific  touch  of  Death,  into  everlasting  pillars  5 
of  ice;  and  the  answer  to  these  impassioned  apostrophes 
is  made  by  the  same  choral  burst  of  rapture.  In  mere 
logic,  therefore,  and  even  as  to  the  choice  of  circum- 
stances, Coleridge's  poem  is  a  translation.  On  the  other 
hand,  by  a  judicious  amplification  of  some  topics,  and  10 
by  its  far  deeper  tone  of  lyrical  enthusiasm,  the  dry 
bones  of  the  German  outline  have  been  awakened  by 
Coleridge  into  the  fulness  of  life.  It  is  not,  therefore,  a 
paraphrase,  but  a  re-cast  of  the  original.  And  how  was 
this  calculated,  if  frankly  avowed,  to  do  Coleridge  any  15 
injury  with  the  judicious? 

2.  A  more  singular  case  of  Coleridge's  infirmity  is 
this: — In  a  very  noble  passage  of  France  a  fine  expres- 
sion or  two  occur  from  Samson  Agonistes.  Now,  to 
take  a  phrase  or  an  inspiriting  line  from  the  great  fathers  20 
of  poetry,  even  though  no  marks  of  quotation  should  be 
added,  carries  with  it  no  charge  of  plagiarism,  Milton 
is  justly  presumed  to  be  as  familiar  to  the  ear  as  nature 
to  the  eye;  and  to  steal  from  him  as  impossible  as  to 
appropriate,  or  sequester  to  a  private  use,  some  "bright  25 
particular  star."  And  there  is  a  good  reason  for  reject- 
ing the  typographical  marks  of  quotation:  they  break 
the  continuity  of  the  passion,  by  reminding  the  reader  of 
a  printed  book;  on  which  account  Milton  himself  (to 
give  an  instance)  has  not  marked  the  sublime  words,  3c 
"tormented  all  the  air"  as  borrowed;  nor  has  Words- 
worth, in  applying  to  an  unprincipled  woman  of  com- 
manding beauty  the  memorable  expression  "a  weed  of 
glorious  feature,"  thought  it  necessary  to  acknowledge 


132  Thomas  DeQuincey 

it  as  originally  belonging  to  Spenser.  Some  dozens  of 
similar  cases  might  be  adduced  from  Milton.  But 
Coleridge,  when  saying  of  republican  France  that, 

"Insupportably  adiancing, 
5  Her  arm  made  mockery  of  the  warrior's  tramp." 

not  satisfied  with  omitting  the  marks  of  acknowledg- 
ment, thought  fit  positively  to  deny  that  he  was  indebted 
to  Milton.  Yet  who  could  forget  that  semi-chorus  in 
the  Samson  where  the  ''bold  Ascalonite"  is  described 

10  as  having  "fled  from  his  lion  ramp"?  Or  who,  that  was 
not  in  this  point  liable  to  some  hallucination  of  judg- 
ment, would  have  ventured  on  a  public  challenge 
(for  virtually  it  was  that)  to  produce  from  the  Samson 
words  so  impossible  to  be  overlooked  as  those  of  "in- 

15  supportably  advancing  the  foot"?  The  result  was 
that  one  of  the  critical  journals  placed  the  two  passages 
in  juxtaposition  and  left  the  reader  to  his  own  conclu- 
sions with  regard  to  the  poet's  veracity.  But,  in  this 
instance,  it  was  common  sense  rather  than  veracity 

20  which  the  facts  impeach. 

3.  In  the  year  1810  I  happened  to  be  amusing  myself 
by  reading,  in  their  chronological  order,  the  great  classical 
circumnavigations  of  the  earth;  and,  coming  to  Shelvocke, 
I  met  with  a  passage  to  this  effect: — 'That  Hatley,  his 

25  second  captain  (i.e.,  lieutenant),  being  a  melancholy 
man,  was  possessed  by  a  fancy  that  some  long  season  of 
foul  weather,  in  the  solitary  sea  which  they  were  then 
traversing,  was  due  to  an  albatross  which  had  steadily 
pursued  the  ship;  upon  which  he  shot  the  bird,  but 

30  without  mending  their  condition.  There  at  once  I  saw 
the  germ  of  the  Ancient  Mariner;  and  I  put  a  question 
to  Coleridge  accordingly.  Could  it  have  been  imagined 
that  he  would  see  cause  utterly  to  disown  so  slight  an 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  1 33 

obligation  to  Shelvocke?  Wordsworth,  a  man  of  stern 
veracity,  on  hearing  of  this,  professed  his  inability  to 
understand  Coleridge's  meaning;  the  fact  being  notorious, 
as  he  told  me,  that  Coleridge  had  derived  from  the  very 
passage  I  had  cited  the  original  hint  for  the  action  of  the  s 
poem;  though  it  is  very  possible,  from  something  which 
Coleridge  said  on  another  occasion,  that,  before  meeting 
a  fable  in  which  to  embody  his  ideas,  he  had  meditated 
a  poem  on  delirium,  confounding  its  own  dream-scenery 
with  external  things,  and  connected  with  the  imagery  of  lo 
high  latitudes. 

4.  All  these  cases  amount  to  nothing  at  all  as  cases  of 
plagiarism,  and  for  this  reason  expose  the  more  con- 
spicuously that  obliquity  of  feeling  which  could  seek  to 
decline  the  very  slight  acknowledgments  required.  But  15 
now  I  come  to  a  case  of  real  and  palpable  plagiarism; 
yet  that,  too,  of  a  nature  to  be  quite  unaccountable  in  a 
man  of  Coleridge's  attainments.  It  is  not  very  likely 
that  this  particular  case  will  soon  be  detected;  but  others 
will.  Yet  who  knows?  Eight  hundred  or  a  thousand  20 
years  hence,  some  reviewer  may  arise  who,  having 
read  the  BiograpJiia  Liter  aria  of  Coleridge,  will  after- 
ward read  the  Philosophical -^  of  Schelling,  the  great 

Bavarian  professor — a  man  in  some  respects  worthy  to 
be  Coleridge's  assessor;  and  he  will  then  make  a  singular  25 
discovery.  In  the  Biographic  Liter  aria  occurs  a  disserta- 
tion upon  the  reciprocal  relations  of  the  esse  and  the 
cogitare — that  is,  of  the  objective  and  the  subjective;  and 
an  attempt  is  made,  by  inverting  the  postulates  from 
which  the  argument  starts,  to  show  how  each  might  30 
arise  as  a  product,  by  an  intelligible  genesis,  from  the 

*  I  forget  the  exact  title,  not  having  seen  the  book  since  1823,  and 
then  only  for  one  day;  but  I  believe  it  was  Schelling's  Kleine 
Philosophische  Werke. 


134  Thomas  DeQuincey 

other.  It  is  a  subject  which,  since  the  time  of  Fichte, 
has  much  occupied  the  German  metaphysicians;  and 
many  thousands  of  essays  have  been  written  on  it,  or 
indirectly  sOj  of  which  many  hundreds  have  been  read 
5  by  many  tens  of  persons.  Coleridge's  essay,  in  particu- 
lar, is  prefaced  by  a  few  words  in  which,  aware  of  his 
coincidence  with  Schelling,  he  declares  his  willingness  to 
acknowledge  himself  indebted  to  so  great  a  man  in  any 
case  where  the  truth  would  allow  him  to  do  so;  but,  in 

lo  this  particular  case,  insisting  on  the  impossibility  that 
he  could  have  borrowed  arguments  which  he  had  first 
seen  some  years  after  he  had  thought  out  the  whole 
hypothesis  proprio  marte.  After  this,  what  was  my 
astonishment  to  find  that  the  entire  essay,   from  the 

IS  first  word  to  the  last,  is  a  verbatim  translation  from 
Schelling,  with  no  attempt  in  a  single  instance  to  appro- 
priate the  paper  by  developing  the  arguments  or  by 
diversifying  the  illustrations?  Some  other  obligations 
to  Schelling,  of  a  slighter  kind,  I  have  met  with  in  the 

20  Biographia  Literaria;  but  this  was  a  barefaced  plagiarism, 
which  could  in  prudence  have  been  risked  only  by  relying 
too  much  upon  the  slight  knowledge  of  German  literature 
in  this  country,  and  especially  of  that  section  of  the 
German  literature.     Had,  then,  Coleridge  any  need  to 

25  borrow  from  Schelling?  Did  he  borrow  in  forma 
pauperis?  Not  at  all:  there  lay  the  wonder.  He  spun 
daily,  and  at  all  hours,  for  mere  amusement  of  his  own 
activities,  and  from  the  loom  of  his  own  magical  brain, 
theories  more  gorgeous  by  far,  and  supported  by  a  pomp 

30  and  luxury  of  images  such  as  neither  Schelling — no,  nor 
any  German  that  ever  breathed,  not  John  Paul — could 
have  emulated  in  his  dreams.  With  the  riches  of  El 
Dorado  lying  about  him,  he  would  condescend  to  filch  a 
handful  of  gold  from  any  man  whose  purse  he  fancied, 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  135 

and  in  fact  reproduced  in  a  new  form,  applying  itself  to 
intellectual  wealth,  that  maniacal  propensity  which  is 
sometimes  well  known  to  attack  enormous  proprietors 
and  millionaires  for  acts  of  petty  larceny.     The  last 

Duke  of  Anc could  not  abstain  from  exercising  his    5 

furtive  mania  upon  articles  so  humble  as  silver  spoons; 
and  it  was  the  nightly  care  of  a  pious  daughter,  watching 
over  the  aberrations  of  her  father,  to  have  his  pockets 
searched  by  a  confidential  valet,  and  the  claimants  of 
the  purloined  articles  traced  out.  10 

Many  cases  have  crossed  me  in  Hfe  of  people,  other- 
wise not  wanting  in  principle,  who  had  habits,  or  at  least 
hankerings,  of  the  same  kind.  And  the  phrenologists, 
I  believe,  are  well  acquainted  with  the  case,  its  signs, 
its  progress,  and  its  history.  Dismissing,  however,  this  15 
subject,  which  I  have  at  all  noticed  only  that  I  might 
anticipate,  and  (in  old  Enghsh)  that  I  might  prevent,  the 
uncandid  interpreter  of  its  meaning,  I  will  assert  finally 
that,  after  having  read  for  thirty  years  in  the  same  track 
as  Coleridge — that  track  in  which  few  of  any  age  will  20 
ever  follow  us,  such  as  German  metaphysicians,  Latin 
Schoolmen,  thaumaturgic  Platonists,  religious  Mystics — 
and  having  thus  discovered  a  large  variety  of  trivial 
thefts,  I  do,  nevertheless,  most  heartily  believe  him  to 
have  been  as  entirely  original  in  all  his  capital  preten-  25 
sions  as  any  one  man  that  ever  has  existed;  as  Archi- 
medes in  ancient  days,  or  as  Shakespeare  in  modern. 
Did  the  reader  ever  see  Milton's  account  of  the  rubbish 
contained  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers?  Or  did  he 
ever  read  a  statement  of  the  monstrous  chaos  with  which  30 
an  African  Obeah  man  stuffs  his  enchanted  scarecrows? 
Or,  take  a  more  common  illustration,  did  he  ever  amuse 
himself  by  searching  the  pockets  of  a  child — three  years 
old,  suppose — -when  buried  in  slumber  after  a  long  sum- 


136  Thomas  DeQuincey 

mer's  day  of  out-o'-doors  intense  activity?  I  have  done 
this;  and,  for  the  amusement  of  the  child's  mother, 
have  analyzed  the  contents,  and  drawn  up  a  formal 
register  of  the  whole.  Philosophy  is  puzzled,  conjecture 
5  and  hypothesis  are  confounded,  in  the  attempt  to  explain 
the  law  of  selection  which  can  have  presided  in  the 
child's  labors;  stones  remarkable  only  for  weight,  old 
rusty  hinges,  nails,  crooked  skewers  stolen  when  the 
cook  had  turned  her  back,  rags,  broken  glass,  tea-cups 

10  having  the  bottom  knocked  out,  and  loads  of  similar 
jewels,  were  the  prevailing  articles  in  this  proces-verbal. 
Yet,  doubtless,  much  labor  had  been  incurred,  some 
sense  of  danger  perhaps  had  been  faced,  and  the  anxie- 
ties of  a  conscious  robber  endured,  in  order  to  amass  this 

15  splendid  treasure.  Such  in  value  were  the  robberies 
of  Coleridge;  such  their  usefulness  to  himself  or  any- 
body else;  and  such  the  circumstances  of  uneasiness 
under  which  he  had  committed  them.  I  return  to  my 
narrative. 

20  Two  or  three  days  slipped  away  in  waiting  for  Cole- 
ridge's re-appearance  at  Nether  Stowey,  when  suddenly 
Lord  Egmont  called  upon  Mr.  Poole,  with  a  present  for 
Coleridge:  it  was  a  canister  of  peculiarly  fine  snuff,  which 
Coleridge  now  took  profusely.     Lord  Egmont,  on  this 

25  occasion,  spoke  of  Coleridge  in  the  terms  of  excessive 
admiration,  and  urged  Mr.  Poole  to  put  him  upon 
undertaking  some  great  monumental  work,  that  might 
furnish  a  sufficient  arena  for  the  display  of  his  various 
and  rare  accomplishments;  for  his  multiform  erudition 

30  on  the  one  hand,  for  his  splendid  power  of  theorizing 
and  combining  large  and  remote  notices  of  facts  on  the 
other.  And  he  suggested,  judiciously  enough,  as  one 
theme  which  offered  a  field  at  once  large  enough  and 
indefinite  enough  to  suit  a  mind  that  could  not  show  its 


Meeting  with   Coleridge  1 37 

full  compass  of  power  unless  upon  very  plastic  materials 
— a  History  of  Christianity,  in  its  progress  and  in  its 
chief  divarications  into  Church  and  Sect,  with  a  continual 
reference  to  the  relations  subsisting  between  Christianity 
and  the  current  philosophy;  their  occasional  connections  5 
or  approaches,  and  their  constant  mutual  repulsions. 
"But,  at  any  rate,  let  him  do  something,"  said  Lord 
Egmont;  "for  at  present  he  talks  very  much  like  an 
angel,  and  does  nothing  at  all."  Lord  Egmont  I  under- 
stood from  everybody  to  be  a  truly  good  and  benevolent  10 
man;  and  on  this  occasion  he  spoke  with  an  earnestness 
which  agreed  with  my  previous  impression.  Coleridge, 
he  said,  was  now  in  the  prime  of  his  powers — uniting 
something  of  youthful  vigor  with  sufficient  experience 
of  life;  having  the  benefit,  beside,  of  vast  meditation,  15 
and  of  reading  unusually  discursive.  No  man  had  ever 
been  better  qualified  to  revive  the  heroic  period  of 
literature  in  England,  and  to  give  a  character  of  weight 
to  the  philosophic  erudition  of  the  country  upon  the 
Continent.  "And  what  a  pity,"  he  added,  "if  this  man  20 
were,  after  all,  to  vanish  like  an  apparition,  and  you,  I, 
and  a  few  others,  who  have  witnessed  his  grand  bravuras 
of  display,  were  to  have  the  usual  fortune  of  ghost-seers, 
in  meeting  no  credit  for  any  statements  that  we  might 
vouch  on  his  behalf!"  25 

On  this  occasion  we  learned,  for  the  first  time,  that 
Lord  Egmont's  carriage  had,  some  days  before,  con- 
veyed Coleridge  to  Bridgewater,  with  a  purpose  of  stay- 
ing one  single  day  at  that  place,  and  then  returning  to 
Mr.  Poole's.  From  the  sort  of  laugh  with  which  Lord  30 
Egmont  taxed  his  own  simplicity,  in  having  confided  at 
all  in  the  stability  of  any  Coleridgian  plan,  I  now 
gathered  that  procrastination  in  excess  was,  or  had 
become,    a   marking   feature   in    Coleridge's   daily   life. 


138  Thomas  DeQuincey 

Nobody  who  knew  him  ever  thought  of  depending  on 
any  appointment  he  might  make:  spite  of  his  uniformly 
honorable  intentions,  nobody  attached  any  weight  to 
his  assurances  in  re  futura:  those  who  asked  him  to 
5  dinner  or  any  other  party,  as  a  matter  of  course,  sent  a 
carriage  for  him,  and  went  personally  or  by  proxy  to 
fetch  him;  and,  as  to  letters,  unless  the  address  were 
in  some  female  hand  that  commanded  his  affectionate 
esteem,  he  tossed  them  all  into  one  general  dead-letter 

<o  bureau,  and  rarely,  I  believe,  opened  them  at  all.  Bour- 
rienne  mentions  a  mode  of  abridging  the  trouble  attached 
to  a  very  extensive  correspondence,  by  which  infinite 
labor  was  saved  to  himself,  and  to  Napoleon,  when 
First  Consul.     Nine  out  of  ten  letters,  supposing  them 

15  letters  of  business  with  official  applications  of  a  special 
kind,  he  contends,  answer  themselves:  in  other  words, 
time  alone  must  soon  produce  events  which  virtually 
contain  the  answer.  On  this  principle  the  letters  were 
opened    periodically,    after    intervals,    suppose,    of    six 

20  weeks;  and,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  it  was  found  that 
not  many  remained  to  require  any  further  more  par- 
ticular answer.  Coleridge's  plan,  however,  was  shorter: 
he  opened  none,  I  understood,  and  answered  none.  At 
least  such  was  his  habit  at  that  time.     But,  on  that  same 

25  day,  all  this,  which  I  heard  now  for  the  first  time  and 
with  much  concern,  was  fully  explained;  for  already  he 
was  under  the  full  dominion  of  opium,  as  he  himself 
revealed  to  me,  and  with  a  deep  expression  of  horror  at 
the  hideous  bondage,  in  a  private  walk  of  some  length 

30  which  I  took  with  him  about  sunset. 

Lord  Egmont's  information,  and  the  knowledge  now 
gained  of  Coleridge's  habits,  making  it  very  uncertain 
when  I  might  see  him  in  my  present  hospitable  quarters, 
I  immediately  took  my  leave  of  Mr.  Poole  and  went 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  1 39 

over  to  Bridgewater.     I  had  received  directions  for  find- 
ing out  the  house  where  Coleridge  was  visiting;  and,  in 
riding  down  a  main  street  of  Bridgewater,  I  noticed  a 
gateway    corresponding   to   the    description   given   me. 
Under  this  was  standing,  and  gazing  about  him,  a  man    5 
whom  I  will  describe.     In  height  he  might  seem  to  be 
about  five  feet  eight  (he  was,  in  reality,  about  an  inch 
and  a  half  taller,  but  his  figure  was  of  an  order  which 
drowns  the  height);  his  person  was  broad  and  full,  and 
tended  even   to  corpulence;   his   complexion  was   fair,  10 
though  not  what  painters  technically  style  fair,  because 
it  was  associated  with  black  hair;  his  eyes  were  large, 
and  soft  in  their  expression;  and  it  was  from  the  peculiar 
appearance  of  haze  or  dreaminess  which  mixed  with 
their  light  that  I  recognized  my  object.     This  was  Cole-  1 5 
ridge.     I  examined  him  steadfastly  for  a  minute  or  more; 
and  it  struck  me  that  he  saw  neither  myself  nor  any 
other  object  in  the  street.     He  was  in  a  deep  reverie;  for 
I  had  dismounted,  made  two  or  three  trifling  arrange- 
ments at  an  inn-door,  and  advanced  close  to  him,  before  20 
he  had  apparently  become  conscious  of  my  presence. 
The  sound  of  my  voice,  announcing  my  own  name,  first 
awoke  him;  he  started,  and  for  a  moment  seemed  at  a 
loss  to  understand  ray  purpose  or  his  own  situation;  for 
he  repeated  rapidly  a  number  of  words  which  had  no  25 
relation  to  either  of  us.     There  was  no  mauvaise  honte 
in  his  manner,  but  simple  perplexity,  and  an  apparent 
difficulty  in  recovering  his  position  amongst  daylight 
realities.     This  little  scene  over,  he  received  me  with  a 
kindness  of  manner  so  marked  that  it  might  be  called  30 
gracious.     The  hospitable  family  with  whom  he  was 
domesticated  were  distinguished  for  their  amiable  man- 
ners   and   enlightened   understandings:   they   were   de- 
scendants from  Chubb,  the  philosophic  writer,  and  bore 


140  Thomas  DeQuIncey 

the  same  name.  For  Coleridge  they  all  testified  deep 
affection  and  esteem — sentiments  in  which  the  whole 
town  of  Bridgewater  seemed  to  share;  for  in  the  evening, 
when  the  heat  of  the  day  had  declined,  I  walked  out  with 
5  him;  and  rarely,  perhaps  never,  have  I  seen  a  person  so 
much  interrupted  in  one  hour's  space  as  Coleridge,  on  this 
occasion,  by  the  courteous  attentions  of  young  and  old. 
All  the  people  of  station  and  weight  in  the  place,  and 
apparently  all  the  ladies,  were  abroad  to  enjoy  the  lovely 

10  summer  evening;  and  not  a  party  passed  without  some 
mark  of  smiling  recognition,  and  the  majority  stopping 
to  make  personal  inquiries  about  his  health,  and  to 
express  their  anxiety  that  he  should  make  a  lengthened 
stay   amongst   them.     Certain   I   am,   from   the   lively 

15  esteem  expressed  toward  Coleridge  at  this  time  by  the 
people  of  Bridgewater,  that  a  very  large  subscription 
might,  in  that  town,  have  been  raised  to  support  him 
amongst  them,  in  the  character  of  a  lecturer,  or  philo- 
sophical   professor.     Especially    I    remarked    that    the 

20  young  men  of  the  place  manifested  the  most  liberal 
interest  in  all  that  concerned  him;  and  I  can  add  my 
attestation  to  that  of  Mr.  Coleridge  himself,  when  de- 
scribing an  evening  spent  amongst  the  enlightened 
tradesmen  of  Birmingham,  that  nowhere  is  more  un- 

25  affected  good  sense  exhibited,  and  particularly  nowhere 
more  elasticity  and  freshness  of  mind,  than  in  the  con- 
versation of  the  reading  men  in  manufacturing  towns. 
In  Kendal,  especially,  in  Bridgewater,  and  in  Man- 
chester, I  have  witnessed  more  interesting  conversations, 

30  as  much  information,  and  more  natural  eloquence  in 
conveying  it,  than  usually  in  literary  cities,  or  in  places 
professedly  learned.  One  reason  for  this  is  that  in 
trading  towns  the  time  is  more  happily  distributed;  the 
day  given  to  business  and  active  duties— the  evening  to 


Meeting  with   Coleridge  141 

relaxation;  on  which  account,  books,  conversation,  and 
literary  leisure  are  more  cordially  enjoyed:  the  same 
satiation  never  can  take  place  which  too  frequently 
deadens  the  genial  enjoyment  of  those  who  have  a  surfeit 
of  books  and  a  monotony  of  leisure.  Another  reason  is  5 
that  more  simplicity  of  manner  may  be  expected,  and 
more  natural  picturesqueness  of  conversation,  more  open 
expression  of  character,  in  places  where  people  have  no 
previous  name  to  support.  Men  in  trading  towns  are 
not  afraid  to  open  their  lips  for  fear  they  should  disap-  ic 
point  your  expectations,  nor  do  they  strain  for  showy 
sentiments  that  they  may  meet  them.  But,  elsewhere, 
many  are  the  men  who  stand  in  awe  of  their  own  reputa- 
tion: not  a  word  which  is  unstudied,  not  a  movement  in 
the  spirit  of  natural  freedom,  dare  they  give  way  to,  15 
because  it  might  happen  that  on  review  something  would 
be  seen  to  retract  or  to  qualify — something  not  properly 
planed  and  chiseled  to  build  into  the  general  architecture 
of  an  artificial  reputation.     But  to  return: — 

Coleridge  led  me  to  a  drawing-room,  rang  the  bell  for  20 
refreshments,  and  omitted  no  point  of  a  courteous  re- 
ception.    He  told  me  that  there  would  be  a  very  large 
dinner  party  on  that  day,  which,  perhaps,  might  be  dis- 
agreeable to  a  perfect  stranger;  but,  if  not,  he  could 
assure  me  of  a  most  hospitable  welcome  from  the  family.  25 
I  was  too  anxious  to  see  him  under  all  aspects  to  think 
of  declining  this  invitation.     That  point  being  settled, 
Coleridge,  like  some  great  river,  the  Orellana,  or  the 
St.  Lawrence,  that,  having  been  checked  and  fretted  by 
rocks  or  thwarting  islands,  suddenly  recovers  its  volume  30 
of  waters  and  its  mighty  music,  swept  at  once,  as  if 
returning  to  his  natural  business,  into  a  continuous  strain 
of  eloquent  dissertation,  certainly  the  most  novel,  the 
most  finely  illustrated,  and  traversing  the  most  spacious 


142  Thomas  DeQuIncey 

fields  of  thought  by  transitions  the  most  just  and  logical, 
that  it  was  possible  to  conceive.  What  I  mean  by  saying 
that  his  transitions  were  "just"  is  by  way  of  contra- 
distinction to  that  mode  of  conversation  which  courts 
5  variety  through  links  of  verbal  connections.  Coleridge, 
to  many  people,  and  often  I  have  heard  the  complaint, 
seemed  to  wander;  and  he  seemed  then  to  wander  the 
most  when,  in  fact,  his  resistance  to  the  wandering  in- 
stinct was  greatest — viz.,  when  the  compass  and  huge 

10  circuit  by  which  his  illustrations  moved  traveled  farthest 
into  remote  regions  before  they  began  to  revolve.  Long 
before  this  coming  round  commenced  most  people  had 
lost  him,  and  naturally  enough  supposed  that  he  had  lost 
himself.     They  continued  to  admire  the  separate  beauty 

IS  of  the  thoughts,  but  did  not  see  their  relations  to  the 
dominant  theme.  Had  the  conversation  been  thrown 
upon  paper,  it  might  have  been  easy  to  trace  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  links;  just  as  in  Bishop  Berkeley's 
Siris,^  from  a  pedestal  so  low  and  abject,  so  culinary, 

20  as  Tar  Water,  the  method  of  preparing  it,  and  its 
medicinal  effects,  the  dissertation  ascends,  like  Jacob's 
ladder,  by  just  gradations,  into  the  Heaven  of  Heavens 
and  the  thrones  of  the  Trinity.  But  Heaven  is  there  con- 
nected with  earth  by  the  Homeric  chain  of  gold;  and, 

25  being  subject  to  steady  examination,  it  is  easy  to  trace 
the  links;  whereas,  in  conversation,  the  loss  of  a  single 
word  may  cause  the  whole  cohesion  to  disappear  from 
view.  However,  I  can  assert,  upon  my  long  and  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  Coleridge's  mind,  that  logic  the  most 

30  severe  was  as  inalienable  from  his  modes  of  thinking  as 
grammar  from  his  language. 

'  Seiris  ought  to  have  been  the  title — i.e.,  ^etpi^i,  a  chain.  From 
this  defect  in  the  orthography,  I  did  not  in  my  boyish  days  perceive, 
nor  could  obtain  any  light  upon  its  meaning. 


Meeting -with  Coleridge  143 

On  the  present  occasion,  the  original  theme,  started 
by  myself,  was  Hartley  and  the  Hartleian  theory.  I  had 
carried  as  a  little  present  to  Coleridge  a  scarce  Latin 
pamphlet,  De  Ideis,  written  by  Hartley  about  1746 
— that  is,  about  three  years  earlier  than  the  publication  5 
of  his  great  work.  He  had  also  preluded  to  this  great 
work  in  a  little  English  medical  tract  upon  Joanna 
Stephens's  medicine  for  the  stone;  for  indeed  Hartley 
was  the  person  upon  whose  evidence  the  House  of  Com- 
mons had  mainly  relied  in  giving  to  that  same  Joanna  10 
a  reward  of  £5000  for  her  idle  medicines — an  application 
of  public  money  not  without  its  use,  in  so  far  as  it  en- 
gaged men  by  selfish  motives  to  cultivate  the  public 
service,  and  to  attempt  public  problems  of  very  difficult 
solution;  but  else,  in  that  particular  instance,  perfectly  15 
idle,  as  the  groans  of  three  generations  since  Joanna's 
era  have  too  feelingly  established.  It  is  known  to  most 
literary  people  that  Coleridge  was,  in  early  life,  so  pas- 
sionate an  admirer  of  the  Hartleian  philosophy  that 
"Hartley"  was  the  sole  baptismal  name  which  he  gave  20 
to  his  eldest  child;  and  in  an  early  poem,  entitled 
Religious   Miisings,    he    has    characterized    Hartley    as 

"Him  of  mortal  kind 
Wisest,  him  first  who  mark'd  the  ideal  tribes 
Up  the  fine  fibers  through  the  sentient  brain  25 

Pass  in  fine  surges." 

But  at  present  (August  1807)  all  this  was  a  forgotten 
thing.  Coleridge  was  so  profoundly  ashamed  of  the 
shallow  Unitarianism  of  Hartley,  and  so  disgusted  to 
think  that  he  could  at  any  time  have  countenanced  that  30 
creed,  that  he  would  scarcely  allow  to  Hartley  the  rever- 
ence which  is  undoubtedly  his  due;  for  I  must  contend 
that,  waiving  all  question  of  the  extent  to  which  Hartley 


144  Thomas  DeQuinccy 

would  have  pushed  it  (as  though  the  law  of  association 
accounted  not  only  for  our  complex  pleasures  and  pains, 
but  also  might  be  made  to  explain  the  act  of  ratiocina- 
tion)— 'Waiving  also  the  physical  substratum  of  nervous 
5  vibrations  and  miniature  vibrations  to  which  he  has 
chosen  to  marry  his  theory  of  association; — all  this 
apart,  I  must  contend  that  the  Essay  on  Man,  his 
Frame,  his  Duty,  and  his  Expectations  stands  forward 
as  a  specimen  almost  unique  of  elaborate  theorizing,  and 

lo  a  monument  of  absolute  beauty  in  the  impression  left  of 
its  architectural  grace.  In  this  respect  it  has,  to  my 
mind,  the  spotless  beauty  and  the  ideal  proportions  of 
some  Grecian  statue.  However,  I  confess  that,  being 
myself,  from  my  earliest  years,  a  reverential  believer  in 

15  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  simply  because  I  never  at- 
tempted to  bring  all  things  within  the  mechanic  under- 
standing, and  because,  hke  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  my 
mind  almost  demanded  mysteries  in  so  mysterious  a 
system   of  relations   as   those  which   connect  us   with 

20  another  world,  and  also  because  the  farther  my  under- 
standing opened  the  more  I  perceived  of  dim  analogies 
to  strengthen  my  creed,  and  because  nature  herself, 
mere  physical  nature,  has  mysteries  no  less  profound; 
for  these,  and  for  many  other  "becanses,"  I  could  not 

25  reconcile  with  my  general  reverence  for  Mr.  Coleridge 
the  fact,  so  often  reported  to  me,  that  he  was  a  Uni- 
tarian. But,  said  some  Bristol  people  to  me,  not  only 
is  he  a  Unitarian — he  is  also  a  Socinian.  In  that  case, 
I  replied,  I  cannot  hold  him  a  Christian.     I  am  a  liberal 

30  man,  and  have  no  bigotry  or  hostile  feelings  toward  a 
Socinian;  but  I  can  never  think  that  man  a  Christian 
who  has  blotted  out  of  his  scheme  the  very  powers  by 
which  only  the  great  offices  and  functions  of  Christianity 
can  be  sustained;  neither  can  I  think  that  any  man, 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  145 

though  he  make  himself  a  marvelously  clever  disputant, 
ever  could  tower  upward  into  a  very  great  philosopher 
unless  he  should  begin  or  should  end  with  Christianity. 
Kant  is  a  dubious  exception.  Not  that  I  mean  to  ques- 
tion his  august  pretensions,  so  far  as  they  went,  and  in  5 
his  proper  line.  Within  his  own  circle  none  durst  tread 
but  he.  But  that  circle  was  hmited.  He  was  called,  by 
one  who  weighed  him  well,  the  alles-zermalmender,  the 
world-shattering  Kant.  He  could  destroy — 'his  intellect 
was  essentially  destructive.  He  was  the  Gog  and  he  was  10 
the  Magog  of  Hunnish  desolation  to  the  existing  schemes 
of  Philosophy.  He  probed  them;  he  showed  the  vanity 
of  vanities  which  besieged  their  foundations — the 
rottenness  below,  the  hollowness  above.  But  he  had 
no  instincts  of  creation  or  restoration  within  his  Apollyon  15 
mind;  for  he  had  no  love,  no  faith,  no  self-distrust, 
no  humihty,  no  childlike  dociHty;  all  which  quahties 
belonged  essentially  to  Coleridge's  mind,  and  waited 
only  for  manhood  and  sorrow  to  bring  them  forward. 

Who  can  read  without  indignation  of  Kant  that,  at  20 
his  own  table,  in  social  sincerity  and  confidential  talk, 
let  him  say  what  he  would  in  his  books,  he  exulted  in 
the  prospect  of  absolute  and  ultimate  annihilation;  that 
he  planted  his  glory  in  the  grave,  and  was  ambitious  of 
rotting  for  ever?     The  King  of  Prussia,  though  a  per-  25 
sonal  friend  of  Kant's,  found  himself  obliged  to  level  his 
state  thunders  at  some  of  his  doctrines,  and  terrified  him 
in  his  advance;  else  I  am  persuaded  that  Kant  would 
have  formally   deUvered  atheism  from   the  professor's 
chair,  and  would  have  enthroned  the  horrid  ghouHsh  30 
creed  (which  privately  he  professed)  in  the  University  of 
Konigsberg.     It  required  the  artillery  of  a  great  king  to 
make  him  pause;  his  menacing  or  warning   letter   to 
Kant  is  extant.     The  general  notion  is,  that  the  royal 


146  Thomas  DeQuincey 

logic  applied  so  austerely  to  the  public  conduct  of  Kant 
in  his  professor's  chair  was  of  that  kind  which  rests  its 
strength  "upon  thirty  legions."  My  own  belief  is  that 
the  king  had  private  information  of  Kant's  ultimate 
5  tendencies  as  revealed  in  his  table-talk.  The  fact  is  that, 
as  the  stomach  has  been  known,  by  means  of  its  own 
potent  acid  secretion,  to  attack  not  only  whatsoever  alien 
body  is  introduced  within  it,  but  also  (as  John  Hunter 
first  showed)   sometimes  to  attack  itself  and  its  own 

10  organic  structure,  so,  and  with  the  same  preternatural 
extension  of  instinct,  did  Kant  carry  forward  his  destroy- 
ing functions,  until  he  turned  them  upon  his  own  hopes 
and  the  pledges  of  his  own  superiority  to  the  dog,  the 
ape,    the    worm.     But    "exoriare    aliquis" — and    some 

15  philosopher,  I  am  persuaded,  will  arise;  and  "one  sling 
of  some  victorious  arm"  will  yet  destroy  the  destroyer, 
in  so  far  as  he  has  applied  himself  to  the  destruction  of 
Christian  hope.  For  my  faith  is  that,  though  a  great 
man  may,  by  a  rare  possibility,  be  an  infidel,  an  intellect 

20  of  the  highest  order  must  build  upon  Christianity.  A 
very  clever  architect  may  choose  to  show  his  power  by 
building  with  insufficient  materials;  but  the  supreme 
architect  must  require  the  very  best,  because  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  forms  cannot  be  shown  but  in  the  perfection  of 

25  the  matter. 

On  these  accounts  I  took  the  liberty  of  doubting,  as 
often  as  I  heard  the  reports  I  have  mentioned  of  Cole- 
ridge; and  I  now  found  that  he  disowned  most  solemnly 
(and  I  may  say  penitentially)  whatever  had  been  true  in 

30  these  reports.  Coleridge  told  me  that  it  had  cost  him 
a  painful  effort,  but  not  a  moment's  hesitation,  to  abjure 
his  Unitarianism,  from  the  circumstance  that  he  had 
amongst  the  Unitarians  many  friends,  to  some  of  whom 
he  was  greatly  indebted  for  great  kindness.     In  par- 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  147 

ticular,  he  mentioned  Mr.  EstHn  of  Bristol,  a  distin- 
guished Dissenting  clergyman,  as  one  whom  it  grieved 
him  to  grieve.  But  he  would  not  dissemble  his  altered 
views.  I  will  add,  at  the  risk  of  appearing  to  dwell  too 
long  on  religious  topics,  that,  on  this  my  first  introduc-  5 
tion  to  Coleridge,  he  reverted  with  strong  compunction 
to  a  sentiment  which  he  had  expressed  in  earher  days 
upon  prayer.  In  one  of  his  youthful  poems,  speaking 
of  God,  he  had  said — 

"Of  whose  omniscient  and  all-spreading  love  lO 

Aught  to  implore  were  impotence  of  mind." 

This  sentiment  he  now  so  utterly  condemned  that,  on 
the  contrary,  he  told  me,  as  his  own  peculiar  opinion, 
that  the  act  of  praying  was  the  very  highest  energy  of 
which  the  human  heart  was  capable;  praying,  that  is,  15 
with  the  total  concentration  of  the  faculties;  and  the 
great  mass  of  worldly  men,  and  of  learned  men,  he 
pronounced  absolutely  incapable  of  prayer. 

For  about  three  hours  he  had  continued  to  talk,  and 
in  the  course  of  this  performance  he  had  delivered  many  20 
most   striking   aphorisms,   embalming   more   weight   of 
truth,  and  separately  more  deserving  to  be  themselves 
embalmed,   than  would  easily  be  found  in  a  month's 
course  of  select  reading.     In  the  midst  of  our  conversa- 
tion, if  that  can  be  called  conversation  which  I  so  seldom  25 
sought  to  interrupt,  and  which  did  not  often  leave  open- 
ings  for   contribution,    the   door   opened,    and    a    lady 
entered.     She  was  in  person  full  and  rather  below  the 
common  height;  whilst  her  face  showed  to  my  eye  some 
prettiness  of  rather  a  commonplace  order.     Coleridge  3*0 
paused  upon  her  entrance;  his  features,  however,  an- 
nounced no  particular  complacency,  and  did  not  relax 
into  a  smile.     In  a  frigid  tone  he  said,  whilst  turning  to 


148  Thomas  DcQuincey 

me,  "Mrs.  Coleridge";  in  some  slight  way  he  then 
presented  me  to  her:  I  bowed;  and  the  lady  almost 
immediately  retired.  From  this  short  but  ungenial 
scene,  I  gathered,  what  I  afterward  learned  redund- 
5  antly,  that  Coleridge's  marriage  had  not  been  a  very 
happy  one.  But  let  not  the  reader  misunderstand  me. 
Never  was  there  a  baser  insinuation,  viler  in  the  motive, 
or  more  ignoble  in  the  manner,  than  that  passage  in 
some  lampoon  of  Lord  Byron's,  where,  by  way  of  ven- 

10  geance  on  Mr.  Southey  (who  was  the  sole  delinquent), 
he  described  both  him  and  Coleridge  as  having  married 
"two  milliners  from  Bath."  Everybody  knows  what  is 
meant  to  be  conveyed  in  that  expression,  though  it 
would  be  hard,  indeed,  if,  even  at  Bath,  there  should 

15  be  any  class  under  such  a  fatal  curse,  condemned  so 
irretrievably,  and  so  hopelessly  prejudged,  that  ignominy 
must,  at  any  rate,  attach,  in  virtue  of  a  mere  name  or 
designation,  to  the  mode  by  which  they  gained  their 
daily  bread,  or  possibly  supported  the  declining  years 

20  of  a  parent.  However,  in  this  case,  the*  whole  sting  of 
the  libel  was  a  pure  falsehood  of  Lord  Byron's.  Bath 
was  not  the  native  city,  nor  at  any  time  the  residence, 
of  the  ladies  in  question,  but  Bristol.  As  to  the  other 
word,  "milliners,"  that  is  not  worth  inquiring  about. 

25  Whether  they,  or  any  one  of  their  family,  ever  did  exer- 
cise this  profession,  I  do  not  know;  they  were,  at  all 
events,  too  young,  when  removed  by  marriage  from 
Bristol,  to  have  been  much  tainted  by  the  worldly  feel- 
ings which  may  beset  such  a  mode  of  life.     But,  what 

30  is  more  to  the  purpose,  I  heard,  at  this  time,  in  Bristol, 
from  Mr.  Cottle,  the  author,  a  man  of  high  principle, 
as  also  from  his  accomplished  sisters — from  the  ladies, 
again,  who  had  succeeded  Mrs.  Hannah  More  in  her 
school,   and  who   enjoyed    her  entire   confidence — that 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  I49 

the  whole  family  of  four  or  five  sisters  had  maintained 
an  irreproachable  character,  though  naturally  exposed, 
by  their  personal  attractions,  to  some  peril  and  to  the 
malevolence  of  envy.  This  declaration,  which  I  could 
strengthen  by  other  testimony  equally  disinterested,  if  it  5 
were  at  all  necessary,  I  owe  to  truth;  and  I  must  also 
add,  upon  a  knowledge  more  personal,  that  Mrs.  Cole- 
ridge was,  in  all  circumstances  of  her  married  life,  a 
virtuous  wife  and  a  conscientious  mother;  and,  as  a 
mother,  she  showed  at  times  a  most  meritorious  energy.  10 
In  particular,  I  remember  that,  wishing  her  daughter  to 
acquire  the  Italian  language,  and  having  in  her  retire- 
ment at  Keswick  no  means  of  obtaining  a  master,  she 
set  to  work  resolutely,  under  Mr.  Southey's  guidance, 
to  learn  the  language  herself,  at  a  time  of  life  when  15 
such  attainments  are  not  made  with  ease  or  pleasure. 
She  became  mistress  of  the  language  in  a  very  respect- 
able extent,  and  then  communicated  her  new  accom- 
plishment to  her  most  interesting  daughter. 

I  go  on,  therefore,  to  say,   that  Coleridge  afterward  20 
made  me,  as  doubtless  some  others,  a  confidant  in  this 
particular.     What  he  had  to  complain  of  was  simply 
incompatibility  of  temper  and  disposition.     Wanting  all 
cordial  admiration,  or  indeed  comprehension,  of  her  hus- 
band's intellectual  powers,  Mrs.  Coleridge  wanted  the  25 
original    basis    for    affectionate    patience    and    candor. 
Hearing  from  everybody  that  Coleridge  was  a  man  of 
most   extraordinary   endowments,   and   attaching   little 
weight,   perhaps,    to    the    distinction   between   popular 
talents  and  such  as  by  their  very  nature  are  doomed  to  a  ;?o 
slower   progress   in    the   public   esteem,    she    naturally 
looked   to  see,   at  least,   an   extraordinary  measure  Oi 
worldly  consequence  attend  upon  their  exercise.     Now, 
had  Coleridge  been  as  persevering  and  punctual  as  the 


150  Thomas  DeQuincey 

great  mass  of  professional  men,  and  had  he  given  no 
reason  to  throw  the  onus  of  the  different  result  upon  his 
own  different  habits,  in  that  case  this  result  might,  pos- 
sibly and  eventually,  have  been  set  down  to  the  peculiar 
5  constitution  of  his  powers,  and  their  essential  mal- 
adaptation  to  the  English  market.  But,  this  trial  having 
never  fairly  been  made,  it  was  natural  to  impute  his  non- 
success  exclusively  to  his  own  irregular  application,  and 
to  his  carelessness  in  forming  judicious  connections.     In 

10  circumstances  such  as  these,  however,  no  matter  how 
caused  or  how  palliated,  was  laid  a  sure  ground  of  dis- 
content and  fretfulness  in  any  woman's  mind,  not  un- 
usually indulgent  or  unusually  magnanimous.  Cole- 
ridge, besides,  assured  me  that  his  marriage  was  not  his 

15  own  deliberate  act,  but  was  in  a  manner  forced  upon  his 
sense  of  honor  by  the  scrupulous  Southey,  who  insisted 
that  he  had  gone  too  far  in  his  attentions  to  Miss  Fricker 
for  any  honorable  retreat.  On  the  other  hand,  a  neutral 
spectator  of  the  parties  protested  to  me,  that,  if  ever  in 

20  his  life  he  had  seen  a  man  under  deep  fascination,  and 
what  he  would  have  called  desperately  in  love,  Coleridge, 
in  relation  to  Miss  F.,  was  that  man.  Be  that  as  it 
might,  circumstances  occurred  soon  after  the  marriage 
which  placed  all  the  parties  in  a  trying  situation  for  their 

25  candor  and  good  temper.  I  had  a  full  outline  of  the 
situation  from  two  of  those  who  were  chiefly  interested, 
and  a  partial  one  from  a  third:  nor  can  it  be  denied  that 
all  the  parties  offended  in  point  of  prudence.  A  young 
lady  became  a  neighbor,  and  a  daily  companion  of  Cole- 

30  ridge's  walks,  whom  I  will  not  describe  more  particularly 
than  by  saying  that  intellectually  she  was  very  much 
superior  to  Mrs.  Coleridge.  That  superiority  alone,  when 
made  conspicuous  by  its  effects  in  winning  Coleridge's 
regard  and  society,  could  not  but  be  deeply  mortifying 


Meeting  with   Coleridge  151 

to  a  young  wife.  However,  it  was  moderated  to  her 
feelings  by  two  considerations: — i.  That  the  young 
lady  was  much  too  kind-hearted  to  have  designed  any 
annoyance  in  this  triumph,  or  to  express  any  exultation. 
2.  That  no  shadow  of  suspicion  settled  upon  the  moral  5 
conduct  or  motives  of  either  party:  the  young  lady  was 
always  attended  by  her  brother;  she  had  no  personal 
charms;  and  it  was  manifest  that  mere  intellectual  sym- 
pathies, in  reference  to  literature  and  natural  scenery, 
had  associated  them  in  their  daily  walks.  10 

Still,  it  is  a  bitter  trial  to  a  young  married  woman  to 
sustain  any  sort  of  competition  with  a  female  of  her  own 
age  for  any  part  of  her  husband's  regard,  or  any  share 
of  his  company.     Mrs.  Coleridge,  not  having  the  same 
relish  for  long  walks  or  rural  scenery,  and  their  residence  15 
being,  at  this  time,  in  a  very  sequestered  village,  was 
condemned  to  a  daily  renewal  of  this  trial.     Accidents  of 
another  kind  embittered  it  still  further:  often  it  would 
happen  that  the  walking  party  returned  drenched  with 
rain;  in  which  case,  the  young  lady,  with  a  laughing  20 
gaiety,  and  evidently  unconscious  of  any  liberty  that  she 
was  taking,  or  any  wound  that  she  was  inflicting,  would 
run   up   to   Mrs.    Coleridge's   wardrobe,    array   herself, 
without  leave  asked,  in  Mrs.  Coleridge's  dresses,  and    • 
make  herself  merry  with  her  own  unceremoniousness  and  25 
Mrs.     Coleridge's   gravity.     In    all    this,    she    took   no 
liberty  that  she  would  not  most  readily  have  granted  in 
return;   she  confided   too  unthinkingly  in  what  she  re- 
garded as  the  natural  privileges  of  friendship;  and  as  little 
thought  that  she  had  been  receiving  or  exacting  a  favor,  30 
as,  under  an  exchange  of  their  relative  positions,  she 
would  have  claimed  to  confer  one.     But  Mrs.  Coleridge 
viewed  her  freedoms  with  a  far  different  eye:  she  felt 
herself  no  longer  the  entire  mistress  of  her  own  house;  she 


152  Thomas  DcQuincey 

held  a  divided  empire;  and  it  barbed  the  arrow  to  her 
womanly  feelings  that  Coleridge  treated  any  sallies  of 
resentment  which  might  sometimes  escape  her  as  nar- 
row-mindedness; whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  her  own 
5  female  servant,  and  others  in  the  same  rank  of  life, 
began  to  drop  expressions  which  alternately  implied  pity 
for  her  as  an  injured  woman,  or  contempt  for  her  as  a 
very  tame  one. 

The  reader  will  easily  apprehend  the  situation,  and 

10  the  unfortunate  results  which  it  boded  to  the  harmony  of 
a  young  married  couple,  without  further  illustration. 
Whether  Coleridge  would  not,  under  any  circumstances, 
have  become  indifferent  to  a  wife  not  eminently  capable 
of  enlightened  sympathy  with  his  own  ruling  pursuits, 

IS  I  do  not  undertake  to  pronounce.  My  own  impression 
is  that  neither  Coleridge  nor  Lord  Byron  could  have 
failed,  eventually,  to  quarrel  with  any  wife,  though  a 
Pandora  sent  down  from  heaven  to  bless  him.  But, 
doubtless,  this  consummation  must  have  been  hastened 

20  by  a  situation  which  exposed  Mrs.  Coleridge  to  an  in- 
vidious comparison  with  a  more  intellectual  person;  as, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  was  most  unfortunate  for  Coleridge 
himself  to  be  continually  compared  with  one  so  ideally 
correct  and  regular  in  his  habits  as  Mr.  Southey.     Thus 

25  was  their  domestic  peace  prematurely  soured:  embar- 
rassments of  a  pecuniary  nature  would  be  likely  to 
demand  continual  sacrifices;  no  depth  of  affection  exist- 
ing, these  would  create  disgust  or  dissension;  and  at 
length   each  would  believe   that   their  union  had  orig- 

30  inated  in  circumstances  overruling  their  own  deliberate 
choice. 

The  gloom,  however,  and  the  weight  of  dejection 
which  sat  u])on  Coleridge's  countenance  and  deportment 
at  this  time  could  not  ])e  accounted  for  by  a  disappoint- 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  153 

ment  (if  such  it  were)  to  which  time  must,  long  ago, 
have  reconciled  him.     Mrs.  Coleridge,  if  not  turning  to 
him  the  more  amiable  aspects  of  her  character,  was  at 
any   rate   a   respectable   partner.     And   the    season   of 
youth  was  now  passed.     They  had  been  married  about-  5 
ten  years;  had  had  four  children,  of  whom  three  sur- 
vived; and  the  interests  of  a  father  were  now  replacing 
those  of  a  husband.     Yet  never  had  I  beheld  so  profound* 
an  expression  of  cheerless  despondency.     And  the  rest- 
less activity  of  Coleridge's  mind,  in  chasing  abstract  10 
truths,  and  burying  himself  in  the  dark  places  of  human 
speculation,  seemed  to  me,  in  a  great  measure,  an  at- 
tempt to  escape  out  of  his  own  personal  wretchedness. 
I  was  right.     In  this  instance,  at  least,  I  had  hit  the 
mark;  and  Coleridge  bore  witness  himself  at  an  after  15 
period  to  the  truth  of  my  divination  by  some  impressive 
verses.     At  dinner,  when  a  very  numerous  party  had 
assembled,  he  knew  that  he  was  expected  to  talk,  and 
exerted  himself  to  meet  the  expectation.     But  he  was 
evidently  struggling  with  gloomy  thoughts  that  prompted  20 
him  to  silence  and  perhaps  to  solitude:  he  talked  with 
effort,  and  passively  resigned  himself  to  the  repeated 
misrepresentations  of  several  amongst  his  hearers.     The 
subject  chiefly  discussed  was  Arthur  Young,  not  for  his 
rural  economy,  but  for  his  politics.     It  must  be  to  this  25 
period   of    Coleridge's   life   that   Wordsworth   refers   in 
those  exquisite  "Lines  written  in  my  pocket  copy  of 
the  Castle  of  Indolence.''^     The  passage  which  I  mean 
comes  after  a  description  of   Coleridge's  countenance, 
and  begins  in  some  such  terms  as  these: —  30 

"A  piteous  sight  it  was  to  see  this  man, 
When  he  came  back  to  us,  a  wither'd  flow'r,"  &c. 

Withered  he  was,  indeed,  and  to  all  appearance  blighted. 


154  Thomas  DeQuincey 

At  night  he  entered  into  a  spontaneous  explanation  of 
this  unhappy  overclouding  of  his  Hfe,  on  occasion  of  my 
saying  accidentally  that  a  toothache  had  obliged  me  to 
take  a  few  drops  of  laudanum.  At  what  time  or  on 
5-  what  motive  he  had  commenced  the  use  of  opium,  he  did 
not  say;  but  the  peculiar  emphasis  of  horror  with  which 
he  warned  me  against  forming  a  habit  of  the  same  kind 
•impressed  upon  my  mind  a  feeling  that  he  never  hoped 
to  liberate  himself  from  the  bondage.     My  belief  is  that 

lo  he  never  did.  About  ten  o'clock  at  night  I  took  leave 
of  him;  and,  feeling  that  I  could  not  easily  go  to  sleep 
after  the  excitement  of  the  day,  and  fresh  from  the  sad 
spectacle  of  powers  so  majestic  already  besieged  by 
decay,  I  determined  to  return  to  Bristol  through  the  cool- 

15  ness  of  the  night.  The  roads,  though,  in  fact,  a  section 
of  the  great  highway  between  seaports  so  turbulent  as 
Bristol  and  Plymouth,  were  as  quiet  as  garden-walks. 
Once  only  I  passed  through  the  expiring  fire  of  a 
village  fair  or  wake:  that  interruption  excepted,  through 

20  the  whole  stretch  of  forty  miles  from  Bridgewater  to 
the  Hot-wells,  I  saw  no  living  creature  but  a  surly  dog, 
who  followed  me  for  a  mile  along  a  park-wall,  and  a 
man,  who  was  moving  about  in  the  half-way  town  of 
Cross.     The  turnpike-gates  were  all  opened  by  a  mechan- 

25  ical  contrivance  from  a  bed-room  window;  I  seemed  to 
myself  in  solitary  possession  of  the  whole  sleeping 
country.  The  summer  night  was  divinely  calm;  no 
sound,  except  once  or  twice  the  cry  of  a  child  as  I 
was  passing  the  windows  of  cottages,  ever  broke  upon 

50  the  utter  silence;  and  all  things  conspired  to  throw  back 
my  thoughts  upon  that  extraordinary  man  whom  I  had 
just  quitted. 

The  fine  saying  of  Addison  is  familiar  to  most  readers 
— that  Babylon  in  ruins  is  not  so  affecting  a  si)ectacle, 


Meeting  with  Coleridge  155 

or  so  solemn,  as  a  human  mind  overthrown  by  lunacy. 
How  much  more  awful,  then,  when  a  mind  so  regal  as 
that  of  Coleridge  is  overthrown,  or  threatened  with  over- 
throw, not  by  a  visitation  of  Providence,  but  by  the 
treachery  of  its  own  will,  and  by  the  conspiracy,  as  it    5 
were,  of  himself  against  himself!     Was  it  possible  that 
this  ruin  had  been  caused  or  hurried  forward  by  the 
dismal  degradations  of  pecuniary  difficulties?     That  was 
worth   inquiring.     I   will   here  mention  briefly   that   I 
did  inquire  two  days  after;  and,  in  consequence  of  what  10 
I  heard,  I  contrived  that  a  particular  service  should  be 
rendered  to  Mr.  Coleridge,  a  week  later,  through  the 
hands  of  Mr,  Cottle  of  Bristol,  which  might  have  the 
effect  of  liberating  his  mind  from  anxiety  for  a  year  or 
two,  and  thus  rendering  his  great  powers  disposable  to  15 
their  natural  uses.     That  service  was  accepted  by  Cole- 
ridge.    To  save  him  any  feelings  of  distress,  all  names 
were  concealed;  but,  in  a  letter  written  by  him  about 
fifteen  years  after  that  time,  I  found  that  he  had  become 
aware  of  all  the  circumstances,  perhaps  through  some  in-  20 
discretion  of  Mr,  Cottle's.     A  more  important  question  I 
never  ascertained,  viz,  whether  this  service  had  the  effect 
of  seriously  lightening  his  mind.     For  some  succeeding 
years,  he  did  certainly  appear  to  me  released  from  that 
load  of  despondency  which  oppressed  him  on  my  first  25 
introduction.     Grave,  indeed,  he  continued  to  be,  and 
at  times  absorbed  in  gloom;  nor  did  I  ever  see  him  in  a 
state  of  perfectly  natural  cheerfulness.     But,  as  he  strove 
in  vain  for  many  years  to  wean  himself  from  his  cap- 
tivity to  opium,  a  healthy  state  of  spirits  could  not  be  30 
much  expected.     Perhaps,  indeed,  where  the  liver  and 
other  organs  had,  for  so  large  a  period  in  life,  been 
subject  to  a  continual  morbid  stimulation,  it  might  be 
impossible   for   the   system   ever   to   recover  a   natural 


156  Thomas  DeQuincey 

action.  Torpor,  I  suppose,  must  result  from  continued 
artificial  excitement;  and,  perhaps,  upon  a  scale  of  cor- 
respondinjT  duration.  Life,  in  such  a  case,  may  not 
offer  a  field  of  sufficient  extent  for  unthreading  the  fatal 
5  links  that  have  been  wound  about  the  machinery  of 
health,  and  have  crippled  its  natural  play. 

Meantime — 'to  resume  the  thread  of  my  wandering 
narrative — on  this  serene  summer  night  of  1807,  as  I 
moved  slowly  along,  with  my  eyes  continually  settling 

10  upon  the  northern  constellations,  which,  like  all  the 
fixed  stars,  by  their  immeasurable  and  almost  spiritual 
remoteness  from  human  affairs,  naturally  throw  the 
thoughts  upon  the  perishableness  of  our  earthly  troubles, 
in  contrast  with  their  own  utter  peace  and  solemnity — ■ 

15  I  reverted,  at  intervals,  to  all  I  had  ever  heard  of  Cole- 
ridge, and  strove  to  weave  it  into  some  continuous 
sketch  of  his  life.  I  hardly  remember  how  much  I  then 
knew;  I  know  but  little  now:  that  little  I  will  here  jot 
down  upon  paper. 

MEETING  WITH  WORDSWORTH 

20  In  1807  it  was,  at  the  beginning  of  winter,  that  I  first 
saw  William  Wordsworth.  I  have  already  mentioned 
that  I  had  introduced  myself  to  his  notice  by  letter  as 
early  as  the  spring  of  1803.  To  this  hour  it  has  con- 
tinued, I  believe,  a  mystery  to  Wordsworth,  why  it  was 

25  that  I  suffered  an  interval  of  four  and  a  half  years  to 
slip  away  before  availing  myself  of  the  standing  invita- 
tion with  which  I  had  been  honored  to  the  poet's  house. 
Very  probably  he  accounted  for  this  delay  by  supposing 
that  the  new-born  liberty  of  an  Oxford  life,  with  its 

30  multiplied  enjoyments,  acting  upon  a  boy  just  emanci- 
pated from  the  restraints  of  a  school,  and,  in  one  hour, 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  1 57 

elevated  into  what  we  Oxonians  so  proudly  and  so  ex- 
clusively denominate  "a  man,"^  might  have  tempted  me 
into  pursuits  alien  from  the  pure  intellectual  passions 
which  had  so  powerfully  mastered  my  youthful  heart 
some  years  before.  Extinguished  such  a  passion  could  5 
not  be;  nor  could  he  think,  if  remembering  the  fervor 
with  which  I  had  expressed  it,  the  sort  of  "nympho- 
lepsy"  which  had  seized  upon  me,  and  which,  in  some 
imperfect  way,  I  had  avowed  with  reference  to  the  very 
lakes  and  mountains,  amongst  which  the  scenery  of  this  10 
most  original  poetry  had  chiefly  grown  up  and  moved. 
The  very  names  of  the  ancient  hills — 'Fairfield,  Seat 
Sandal,  Helvellyn,  Blencathara,  Glaramara;  the  names 
of  the  sequestered  glens — such  as  Borrowdale,  Martin- 
dale,  Mardale,  Wasdale,  and  Ennerdale;  but,  above  all,  15 
the  shy  pastoral  recesses,  not  garishly  in  the  world's  eye, 
like  Windermere  or  Derwentwater,  but  lurking  half  un- 
known to  the  traveler  of  that  day — Grasmere,  for  in- 
stance, the  lovely  abode  of  the  poet  himself,  solitary, 
and  yet  sowed,  as  it  were,  with  a  thin  diffusion  of  20 
humble  dwellings — here  a  scattering,  and  there  a  cluster- 
ing, as  in  the  starry  heavens — sufficient  to  afford,  at 
every  turn  and  angle,  human  remembrances  and 
memorials   of   time-honored   affections,    or   of   passions 

1  At  the  Universities  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  where  the  town 
is  viewed  as  a  mere  ministerial  appendage  to  the  numerous  col- 
leges— the  civic  Oxford,  for  instance,  existing  for  the  sake  of  the 
academic  Oxford,  and  not  vice  versa— it  has  naturally  happened 
that  the  students  honor  with  the  name  of  "a  man"  him  only  who 
wears  a  cap  and  gown.  The  word  is  not  used  with  any  reference 
to  physical  powers,  or  to  age;  but  simply  to  the  final  object  for 
which  the  places  are  supposed  to  have  first  arisen,  and  to  maintain 
themselves.  There  is,  however,  a  ludicrous  effect  produced  in 
some  instances  by  the  use  of  this  term  in  contradistinguishing 
parties.  "Was  he  a  man?"  is  a  frequent  question;  and  as  fre- 
quent in  the  mouth  of  a  stripling  under  nineteen,  speaking,  per- 
haps, of  a  huge,  elderly  tradesman — "Oh,  no!  not  a  man  at  all." 


158  Thomas  DeQulncey 

(as  the  Churchyard  amongst  the  Mountains  will 
amply  demonstrate)  not  wanting  even  in  scenic  and 
tragical  interest — these  were  so  many  local  spells  upon 
me,  equally  poetic  and  elevating  with  the  Miltonic  names 
5  of  Valdarno  and  Vallombrosa. 

Deep  are  the  voices  which  seem  to  call,  deep  is  the 
lesson  which  would  be  taught  even  to  the  most  thought- 
less of  men — 

"Could  field,  or  grove,  or  any  spot  on  earth, 
10  Show  to  his  eye  an  image  of  the  pangs 

Which  it  hath  witness'd;  render  back  an  echo 
Of  the  sad  stops  by  which  it  hath  been  trod."i 

Meantime,  my  delay  was  due  to  anything  rather  than  to 
waning  interest.     On  the  contrary,  the  real  cause  of  my 

1 5  delay  was  the  too  great  profundity,  and  the  increasing 
profundity,  of  my  interest  in  this  regeneration  of  our 
national  poetry;  and  the  increasing  awe,  in  due  pro- 
portion to  the  decaying  thoughtlessness  of  boyhood, 
which  possessed   me   for   the   character  of  its   author. 

20  So  far  from  neglecting  Wordsworth,  it  is  a  fact  that 
twice  I  had  undertaken  a  long  journey  expressly  for  the 
purpose  of  paying  my  respects  to  Wordsworth;  twice 
I  came  so  far  as  the  little  rustic  inn  (then  the  sole  inn 
of    the    neighborhood)    at    Church    Coniston;    and    on 

25  neither  occasion  could  I  summon  confidence  enough  to 
present  myself  before  him.  It  was  not  that  I  had  any 
want  of  proper  boldness  for  facing  the  most  numerous 
company  of  a  mixed  or  ordinary  character:  reserved, 
indeed,  I  was,  perhaps  even  shy — from  the  character  of 

30  my  mind,  so  profoundly  meditative,  and  the  character 

'See  the  divine  passage  (in  the  Sixth  Book  of  T}ie  Excursion) 
beginning — 

"Ah,  what  a  lesson  to  a  thoughtless  man,"  etc. 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  159 

of  my  life,  so  profoundly  sequestered — but  still,  from 
counteracting  causes,  I  was  not  deficient  in  a  reasonable 
self-confidence  toward  the  world  generally.  But  the 
very  image  of  Wordsworth,  as  I  prefigured  it  to  my 
own  planet-struck  eye,  crushed  my  faculties  as  before  5 
Elijah  or  St.  Paul.  Twice,  as  I  have  said,  did  I  advance 
as  far  as  the  lake  of  Coniston;  which  is  about  eight 
miles  from  the  church  of  Grasmere,  and  once  I  abso- 
lutely went  forward  from  Coniston  to  the  very  gorge  of 
Hammerscar,  from  which  the  whole  Vale  of  Grasmere  10 
suddenly  breaks  upon  the  view  in  a  style  of  almost 
theatrical  surprise,  wath  its  lovely  valley  stretching  be- 
fore the  eye  in  the  distance,  the  lake  lying  immediately 
below,  with  its  solemn  ark-like  island  of  four  and  a  half 
acres  in  size  seemingly  floating  on  its  surface,  and  its  15 
exquisite  outline  on  the  opposite  shore,  revealing  all  its 
little  bays"^  and  wild  sylvan  margin,  feathered  to  the 
edge  with  wild  flowers  and  ferns.  In  one  quarter,  a 
little  wood,  stretching  for  about  half  a  mile  toward  the 
outlet  of  the  lake;  more  directly  in  opposition  to  the  20 
spectator,  a  few  green  fields;  and  beyond  them,  just  two 
bowshots  from  the  water,  a  little  white  cottage  gleaming 
from  the  midst  of  trees,  with  a  vast  and  seemingly 
never-ending  series  of  ascents  rising  above  it  to  the 
height  of  more  than  three  thousand  feet.  That  little  25 
cottage  was' Wordsworth's  from  the  time  of  his  marriage, 
and  earlier;  in  fact,  from  the  beginning  of  the  century 
to  the  year  1808.  Afterward,  for  many  a  year,  it  was 
mine.  Catching  one  hasty  glimpse  of  this  loveliest  of 
landscapes,  I  retreated  like  a  guilty   thing,  for  fear  I  30 

1  All  which  inimitable  graces  of  nature  have,  by  the  hands  of 
mechanic  art,  by  solid  masonry,  by  whitewashing,  etc.,  been  exter- 
minated, as  a  growth  of  weeds  and  nuisances,  for  thirty  years. — • 
August  17,  1853. 


i6o  Thomas  DeQuincey 

might  be  surprised  by  Wordsworth,  and  then  returned 
faint-heartedly  to  Coniston,  and  so  to  Oxford,  re  infectd. 
This  was  in  1806.  And  thus  far,  from  mere  excess  of 
nervous  distrust  in  my  own  powers  for  sustaining  a 
S  conversation  with  Wordsworth,  I  had  for  nearly  five 
years  shrunk  from  a  meeting  for  which,  beyond  all 
things  under  heaven,  I  longed.  In  early  youth  I  labored 
under  a  peculiar  embarrassment  and  penury  of  words, 
when  I  sought  to  convey  my  thoughts  adequately  upon 

10  interesting  subjects:  neither  was  it  words  only  that  I 
wanted;  but  I  could  not  unravel,  I  could  not  even  make 
perfectly  conscious  to  myself,  the  subsidiary  thoughts 
into  which  one  leading  thought  often  radiates;  or,  at 
least,  I  could  not  do  this  w'ith  anything  like  the  rapidity 

15  requisite  for  conversation.  I  labored  like  a  sibyl  in- 
stinct with  the  burden  of  prophetic  woe,  as  often  as 
I  found  myself  dealing  with  any  topic  in  w^hich  the 
understanding  combined  with  deep  feelings  to  suggest 
mixed  and  tangled  thoughts:  and  thus  partly— partly 

20  also  from  my  invincible  habit  of  reverie — at  that  era  of 
my  life,  I  had  a  most  distinguished  talent  '^  pour  le 
silence."  Wordsworth,  from  something  of  the  same 
causes,  suffered  (by  his  own  report  to  myself)  at  the 
same  age  from  pretty  much  the  same  infirmity.     And 

25  yet,  in  more  advanced  years — probably  about  twenty- 
eight  or  thirty— both  of  us  acquired  a  remarkable  fluency 
in  the  art  of  unfolding  our  thoughts  colloquially.  How- 
ever, at  that  period  my  deficiencies  w^ere  what  I  have 
described.     And,   after  all,   though  I  had  no  absolute 

30  cause  for  anticipating  contempt,  I  was  so  far  right  in 
my  fears,  that  since  that  time  I  have  had  occasion  to 
perceive  a  worldly  tone  of  sentiment  in  Wordsworth,  not 
less  than  in  Mrs.  Hannah  More  and  other  literary  people, 
by  which  they  were  led  to  set  a  higher  value  upon  a 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  i6i 

limited  respect  from  a  person  high  in  the  woild's  esteem 
than  upon  the  most  lavish  spirit  of  devotion  from  an 
obscure  quarter.  Now,  in  that  point,  my  feelings  are 
far  otherwise. 

Meantime,  the  world  went  on;  events  kept  moving;    5 
and,  amongst  them,  in  the  course  of  1807,  occurred  the 
event  of  Coleridge's  return  to  England  from  his  official 
station  in  the  Governor's  family  at  Malta.     At  Bridge- 
water,  as  I  have  already  recorded,  in  the  summer  of 
1807,  I  was  introduced  to  him.     Several  weeks  after  he  10 
came  with  his  family  to  the  Bristol  Hot-wells,  at  which, 
by  accident,  I  was  then  visiting.     On  calling  upon  him, 
I  found  that  he  had  been  engaged  by  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion to  lecture  at  their  theater  in  Albemarle  Street  during 
the  coming  winter  of   1807-8,  and,  consequently,  was  15 
embarrassed  about  the  mode  of  conveying  his  family 
to  Keswick.     Upon  this,  I  offered  my  services  to  escort 
them  in  a  post-chaise.    This  offer  was   cheerfully  ac- 
cepted; and  at  the  latter  end  of  October  we  set  forward 
— Mrs.  Coleridge,  viz.,  with  her  two  sons — Hartley,  aged  20 
nine,  Derwent,  about  seven — her  beautiful  little  daugh- 
ter,^ about  five,  and,  finally,  myself.     Going  by  the  direct 
route  through  Gloucester,  Bridgenorth,  etc.,  on  the  third 
day  we  reached  Liverpool,  where  I  took  up  my  quarters 
at  a  hotel,  whilst  Mrs.  Coleridge  paid  a  visit  of  a  few  25 
days   to   a   very  interesting  family,   who   had  become 
friends  of  Southey  during  his  visit  to  Portugal.     These 

^  That  most  accomplished,  and  to  Coleridge  most  pious  daughter, 
whose  recent  death  afflicted  so  very  many  who  knew  her  only  by 
her  writings.  She  had  married  her  cousin,  Mr.  Serjeant  Cole- 
ridge, and  in  that  way  retained  her  illustrious  maiden  name  as 
a  wife.  At  seventeen,  when  last  I  saw  her,  she  was  the  most  per- 
fect of  all  pensive,  nun-Hke,  intellectual  beauties  that  I  have  seen 
in  real  breathing  life.  The  upper  parts  of  her  face  were  verily 
divine.  See,  for  an  artist's  opinion,  the  Life  of  that  admirable 
man  CoIUns,  by  his  son. 


i62  Thomas  DeQuincey 

were  the  Misses  Koster,  daughters  of  an  English  gold- 
merchant  of  celebrity,  who  had  recently  quitted  Lisbon 
on  the  approach  of  the  French  army  under  Junot.  Mr. 
Koster  did  me  the  honor  to  call  at  my  quarters,  and 
5  invite  me  to  his  house;  an  invitation  which  I  very  readily 
accepted,  and  had  thus  an  opportunity  of  becoming 
acquainted  with  a  family  the  most  accomplished  I 
had  ever  known.  At  dinner  there  appeared  only  the 
family  party — several    daughters,  and  one  son,  a  fine 

lo  young  man  of  twenty,  but  who  was  consciously  dying  of 
asthma.  Mr.  Koster,  the  head  of  the  family,  was  dis- 
tinguished for  his  good  sense  and  practical  information; 
but,  in  Liverpool,  even  more  so  by  his  eccentric  and 
obstinate  denial  of  certain  notorious  events;   in  par- 

15  ticular,  some  two  years  later,  he  denied  that  any  such 
battle  as  Talavera  had  ever  been  fought,  and  had  a 
large  wager  depending  upon  the  decision.  His  house 
was  the  resort  of  distinguished  foreigners;  and,  on  the 
first  evening  of  my  dining  there,  as  well  as  afterward, 

20  I  there  met  that  marvel  of  women,  Madame  Catalani. 
I  had  heard  her  repeatedly;  but  never  before  been  near 
enough  to  see  her  smile  and  converse — even  to  be 
honored  with  a  smile  myself.  She  and  Lady  Hamilton 
were  the  most  effectively  brilliant  women  I  ever  saw. 

25  However,  on  this  occasion,  the  Misses  Koster  outshone 
even  La  Catalani;  to  her  they  talked  in  the  most  fluent 
Italian;  to  some  foreign  men,  in  Portuguese;  to  one  in 
French;  and  to  most  of  the  party  in  English;  and  each, 
by  turns,  seemed  to  be  their  native  tongue.     Nor  did 

30  they  shrink,  even  in  the  presence  of  the  mighty  enchant- 
ress, from  exhibiting  their  musical  skill. 

Leaving  Liverpool,  after  about  a  week's  delay,  we 
pursued  our  journey  northward.  We  had  slept  on 
the  first  day  at  Lancaster.     Consequently,  at  the  rate 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  163 

of  motion  which  then  prevailed  throughout  England 
— which,  however,  was  rarely  equaled  on  that  western 
road,  where  all  things  were  in  arrear  by  comparison  with 
the  eastern  and  southern  roads  of  the  kingdom — we 
found  ourselves,  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  at  5 
Ambleside,  fourteen  miles  to  the  northwest  of  Kendal, 
and  thirty-six  from  Lancaster.  There,  for  the  last  time, 
we  stopped  to  change  horses;  and  about  four  o'clock 
we  found  ourselves  on  the  summit  of  the  White  Moss, 
a  hill  which  rises  between  the  second  and  third  mile-  10 
stones  on  the  stage  from  Ambleside  to  Keswick,  and 
which  then  retarded  the  traveler's  advance  by  a  full 
fifteen  minutes,  but  is  now  evaded  by  a  lower  line  of 
road.  In  ascending  this  hill,  from  weariness  of  moving 
so  slowly,  I,  with  the  two  Coleridges,  had  alighted;  and,  15 
as  we  all  chose  to  refresh  ourselves  by  running  down 
the  hill  into  Grasmere,  we  had  left  the  chaise  behind 
us,  and  had  even  lost  the  sound  of  the  wheels  at  times, 
when  all  at  once  we  came,  at  an  abrupt  turn  of  the 
road,  in  sight  of  a  white  cottage,  with  two  yew-trees  20 
breaking  the  glare  of  its  white  walls.  A  sudden  shock 
seized  me  on  recognizing  this  cottage,  of  which,  in  the 
previous  year,  I  had  gained  a  momentary  glimpse  from 
Hammerscar,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  lake.  I  paused, 
and  felt  my  old  panic  returning  upon  me;  but  just  then,  25 
as  if  to  take  away  all  doubt  upon  the  subject,  I  saw 
Hartley  Coleridge,  who  had  gained  upon  me  consider- 
ably, suddenly  turn  in  at  a  garden  gate;  this  motion  to 
the  right  at  once  confirmed  me  in  my  belief  that  here  at 
last  we  had  reached  our  port;  that  this  little  cottage  30 
was  tenanted  by  that  man  whom,  of  all  the  men  from  the 
beginning  of  time,  I  most  fervently  desired  to  see;  that 
in  less  than  a  minute  I  should  meet  Wordsworth  face 
to  face,     Coleridge  was  of  opinion  that,  if  a  man  were 


164  Thomas  DeQuIncey 

really  and  consciously  to  see  an  apparition,  in  such  cir- 
cumstances death  would  be  the  inevitable  result;  and,  if 
so,  the  wish  which  we  hear  so  commonly  expressed  for 
such  experience  is  as  thoughtless  as  that  of  Semele  in 
5  the  Grecian  mythology,  so  natural  in  a  female,  that  her 
lover  should  visit  her  en  grand  costume — presumptuous 
ambition,  that  unexpectedly  wrought  its  own  ruinous 
chastisement!  Judged  by  Coleridge's  test,  my  situation 
could  not  have  been  so  terrific  as  his  who  anticipates  a 

10  ghost;  for,  certainly,  I  survived  this  meeting;  but  at 
that  instant  it  seemed  pretty  much  the  same  to  my  own 
feelings. 

Never  before  or  since  can  I  reproach  myself  with 
having  trembled  at  the  approaching  presence  of  any 

15  creature  that  is  born  of  woman,  excepting  only,  for 
once  or  twice  in  my  life,  woman  herself.  Now,  how- 
ever, I  did  tremble;  and  I  forgot,  what  in  no  other  cir- 
cumstances I  could  have  forgotten,  to  stop  for  the  coming 
up  of  the  chaise,  that  I  might  be  ready  to  hand  Mrs. 

20  Coleridge  out.  Had  Charlemagne  and  all  his  peerage 
been  behind  me,  or  Caesar  and  his  equipage,  or  Death 
on  his  pale  horse,  I  should  have  forgotten  them  at  that 
moment  of  intense  expectation,  and  of  eyes  fascinated 
to  what  lay  before  me,  or  what  might  in  a  moment 

25  appear.  Through  the  little  gate  I  pressed  forward;  ten 
steps  beyond  it  lay  the  principal  door  of  the  house.  To 
this,  no  longer  clearly  conscious  of  my  own  feelings,  I 
passed  on  rapidly;  I  heard  a  step,  a  voice,  and,  like  a 
flash  of  lightning,  I  saw  the  figure  emerge  of  a  tallish 

30  man,  who  held  out  his  hand,  and  saluted  me  with  most 
cordial  ex-pressions  of  welcome.  The  chaise,  however, 
drawing  up  to  the  gate  at  that  moment,  he  (and  there 
needed  no  Roman  nomenclator  to  tell  me  that  this  he 
was  Wordsworth)    felt  himself  summoned   to  advance 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  165 

and  receive  Mrs.  Coleridge.  I,  therefore,  stunned 
almost  with  the  actual  accomplishment  of  a  catastrophe 
so  long  anticipated  and  so  long  postponed,  mechanically 
went  forward  into  the  house.  A  little  semi-vestibule 
between  two  doors  prefaced  the  entrance  into  what  5 
might  be  considered  the  principal  room  of  the  cottage. 
It  was  an  oblong  square,  not  above  eight  and  a  half 
feet  high,  sixteen  feet  long,  and  twelve  broad;  very 
prettily  wainscoted  from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling  with 
dark  polished  oak,  slightly  embellished  with  carving.  10 
One  window  there  was — a  perfect  and  unpretending 
cottage  window,  with  little  diamond  panes,  embowered 
at  almost  every  season  of  the  year  with  roses,  and  in 
the  summer  and  autumn  with  a  profusion  of  jasmine  and 
other  fragrant  shrubs.  From  the  exuberant  luxuriance  15 
of  the  vegetation  around  it,  and  from  the  dark  hue  of  the 
wainscoting,  this  window,  though  tolerably  large,  did 
not  furnish  a  very  powerful  light  to  one  who  entered 
from  the  open  air.  However,  I  saw  sufficiently  to  be 
aware  of  two  ladies  just  entering  the  room,  through  a  20 
doorway  opening  upon  a  little  staircase.  The  foremost, 
a  tallish  young  woman,  with  the  most  winning  expres- 
sion of  benignity  upon  her  features,  advanced  to  me, 
presenting  her  hand  with  so  frank  an  air  that  all  em- 
barrassment must  have  fled  in  a  moment  before  the  25 
native  goodness  of  her  manner.  This  was  Mrs.  Words- 
worth, cousin  of  the  poet,  and,  for  the  last  five  years  or 
more,  his  wife.  She  was  now  mother  of  two  children, 
a  son  and  a  daughter;  and  she  furnished  a  remarkable 
proof  how  possible  it  is  for  a  woman  neither  handsome  30 
nor  even  comely  according  to  the  rigor  of  criticism — 
nay,  generally  pronounced  very  plain — to  exercise  all 
the  practical  fascination  of  beauty,  through  the  mere 
compensatory  charms  of  sweetness  all  but  angelic,  of 


l66  Thomas  DeQuincey 

simplicity  the  most  entire,  womanly  self-respect  and 
X>urity  of  heart  speaking  through  all  her  looks,  acts,  and 
movements.  Words,  I  was  going  to  have  added;  but 
her  words  were  few.  In  reality,  she  talked  so  little  that 
5  Mr,  Slave-Trade  Clarkson  used  to  allege  against  her 
that  she  could  only  say  ''God  bless  yoii!'^  Certainly, 
her  intellect  was  not  of  an  active  order;  but,  in  a  qui- 
escent, reposing,  meditative  way,  she  appeared  always 
to  have  a  genial  enjoyment  from  her  own  thoughts; 

lo  and  it  would  have  been  strange,  indeed,  if  she,  who 
enjoyed  such  eminent  advantages  of  training,  from 
the  daily  society  of  her  husband  and  his  sister,  failed 
to  acquire  some  power  of  judging  for  herself,  and  putting 
forth  some  functions  of  activity.     But  undoubtedly  that 

15  was  not  her  element:  to  feel  and  to  enjoy  in  a  luxurious 
repose  of  mind — there  was  her  forte  and  her  peculiar 
privilege;  and  how  much  better  this  was  adapted  to  her 
husband's  taste,  how  much  more  adapted  to  uphold  the 
comfort  of  his  daily  life,  than  a  blue-stocking  loquacity, 

20  or  even  a  legitimate  talent  for  discussion,  may  be 
inferred  from  his  verses,  beginning — 

"She  was  a  phantom  of  delight, 
When  first  she  gleam'd  upon  my  sight." 

Once  for  all,^  these  exquisite  lines  were  dedicated  to 
25  Mrs.  Wordsworth;  were  understood  to  describe  her — to 
have  been  prompted  by  the  feminine  graces  of  her  char- 
acter; hers  they  are,  and  will  remain  for  ever.  To  these, 
therefore,  I  may  refer  the  reader  for  an  idea  of  what  was 
most  important  in  the  partner  and  second  self  of  the  poet. 

1  Once  for  all,  I  say — on  recollecting  that  Coleridge's  verses  to 
Sara  were  made  transferable  to  any  Sara  who  reigned  at  the  time. 
At  least  three  Saras  appropriated  them;  all  three  long  since  in  the 
grave. 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  167 

And  I  will  add  to  this  abstract  of  her  moral  portrait  these 
few  concluding  traits  of  her  appearance  in  a  physical 
sense.  Her  figure  was  tolerably  good.  In  complexion 
she  was  fair,  and  there  was  something  peculiarly  pleasing 
even  in  this  accident  of  the  skin,  for  it  was  accompanied  5 
by  an  animated  expression  of  health,  a  blessing  which, 
in  fact,  she  possesses  uninterruptedly.  Her  eyes,  the 
reader  may  already  know,  were 

"Like  stars  of  twilight  fair; 

Like  twilight,  too,  her  dark  brown  hair;  10 

But  all  things  else  about  her  drawn 
From  May-time  and  the  cheerful  dawn." 

Yet  strange  it  is  to  tell  that,  in  these  eyes  of  vesper 
gentleness,  there  was  a  considerable  obliquity  of  vision; 
and  much  beyond  that  slight  obliquity  which  is  often  15 
supposed  to  be  an  attractive  foible  in  the  countenance: 
this  ought  to  have  been  displeasing  or  repulsive;  yet,  in 
fact,  it  was  not.  Indeed  all  faults,  had  they  been  ten 
times  more  and  greater,  would  have  been  neutralized  by 
that  supreme  expression  of  her  features  to  the  unity  of  20 
which  every  lineament  in  the  fixed  parts,  and  every 
undulation  in  the  moving  parts,  of  her  countenance,  con- 
curred, viz.,  a  sunny  benignity — a  radiant  graciousness — 
such  as  in  this  world  I  never  saw  surpassed. 

Immediately  behind  her  moved  a  lady,  shorter,  25 
slighter,  and  perhaps,  in  all  other  respects,  as  different 
from  her  in  personal  characteristics  as  could  have  been 
wished  for  the  most  effective  contrast.  "Her  face  was  of 
Egyptian  brown";  rarely,  in  a  woman  of  English  birth, 
had  I  seen  a  more  determinate  gipsy  tan.  Her  eyes  were  30 
not  soft,  as  Mrs.  Wordsworth's,  nor  were  they  fierce  or 
bold;  but  they  were  wild  and  startling,  and  hurried  in 
their  motion.     Her  manner  was  warm  and  even  ardent: 


1 68  Thomas  DeQuincey 

her  scnsibiUty  seemed  constitutionally  deep;  and  some 
subtle  fire  of  impassioned  intellect  apparently  burned 
within  her,  which,  being  alternately  pushed  forward  into 
a  conspicuous  expression  by  the  irrepressible  instincts 
5  of  her  temperament,  and  then  immediately  checked,  in 
obedience  to  the  decorum  of  her  sex  and  age,  and  her 
maidenly  condition,  gave  to  her  whole  demeanor,  and 
to  her  conversation,  an  air  of  embarrassment,  and  even 
of  self-conflict,  that  was  almost  distressing  to  witness. 

lo  Even  her  very  utterance  and  enunciation  often  suffered, 
in  point  of  clearness  and  steadiness,  from  the  agitation 
of  her  excessive  organic  sensibility.  At  times,  the  self- 
counteraction  and  self-baffling  of  her  feelings  caused 
her  even  to  stammer,  and  so  determinately  to  stammer 

15  that  a  stranger  who  should  have  seen  her  and  quitted 
her  in  that  state  of  feeling  would  have  certainly  set  her 
down  for  one  plagued  with  that  infirmity  of  speech  as 
distressingly  as  Charles  Lamb  himself.  This  was  Miss 
Wordsworth,  the  only  sister  of  the  poet — his  "Doro- 

20  thy";  who  naturally  owed  so  much  to  the  lifelong  inter- 
course with  her  great  brother  in  his  most  solitary  and 
sequestered  years;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  to  whom  he 
has  acknowledged  obligations  of  the  profoundest  nature; 
and,  in  particular,  this  mighty  one,  through  which  we 

25  also,  the  admirers  and  the  worshipers  of  this  great 
l)oet,  are  become  equally  her  debtors — that,  whereas  the 
intellect  of  Wordsworth  was,  by  its  original  tendency, 
too  stern,  too  austere,  too  much  enamored  of  an  ascetic 
harsh  sublimity,  she  it  was — -the  lady  who  paced  by  his 

^o  side  continually  through  sylvan  and  mountain  tracks,  in 
Highland  glens,  and  in  the  dim  recesses  of  German  char- 
coal-burners—  that  first  couched  his  eye  to  the  sense  of 
beauty,  humanized  him  by  the  gentler  charities,  and  en- 
grafted, with  her  delicate  female   touch,   those  graces 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  169 

upon  the  ruder  growths  of  his  nature  which  have  since 
clothed  the  forest  of  his  genius  with  a  foHage  corre- 
sponding in  lovehness  and  beauty  to  the  strength  of  its 
boughs  and  the  massiness  of  its  trunks.  The  greatest 
deductions  from  Miss  Wordsworth's  attractions,  and  5 
from  the  exceeding  interest  which  surrounded  her  in 
right  of  her  character,  of  her  history,  and  of  the  relation 
which  she  fulfilled  toward  her  brother,  were  the  glanc- 
ing quickness  of  her  motions,  and  other  circumstances 
in  her  deportment  (such  as  her  stooping  attitude  when  10 
walking),  which  gave  an  ungraceful,  and  even  an  un- 
sexual  character  to  her  appearance  when  out-of-doors. 
She  did  not  cultivate  the  graces  which  preside  over  the 
person  and  its  carriage.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  she 
was  a  person  of  very  remarkable  endowments  intel-  15 
lectually;  and,  in  addition  to  the  other  great  services 
which  she  rendered  to  her  brother,  this  I  may  mention, 
as  greater  than  all  the  rest,  and  it  was  one  which  equally 
operated  to  the  benefit  of  every  casual  companion  in  a 
walk — viz.,  the  exceeding  sympathy,  always  ready  and  20 
always  profound,  by  which  she  made  all  that  one  could 
tell  her,  all  that  one  could  describe,  all  that  one  could 
quote  from  a  foreign  author,  reverberate,  as  it  were, 
a  plusieurs  reprises,  to  one's  own  feelings,  by  the  mani- 
fest impression  it  made  upon  hers.  The  pulses  of  hght  25 
are  not  more  quick  or  more  inevitable  in  their  flow  and 
undulation,  than  were  the  answering  and  echoing  move- 
ments of  her  sympathizing  attention.  Her  knowledge 
of  literature  was  irregular,  and  thoroughly  unsystematic. 
She  was  content  to  be  ignorant  of  many  things;  but  what  30 
she  knew  and  had  really  mastered  lay  where  it  could  not 
be  disturbed — in  the  temple  of  her  own  most  fervid  heart. 
Such  were  the  two  ladies  who,  with  himself  and  two 
children,  and  at  that  time  one  servant,  composed  the 


lyo  Thomas  DeQuincey 

poet's  household.  They  were  both,  I  beheve,  about 
twenty-eight  years  old;  and,  if  the  reader  inquires  about 
the  single  point  which  I  have  left  untouched  in  their 
portraiture — viz.,  the  style  of  their  manners — -I  may  say 
5  that  it  was,  in  some  points,  naturally  of  a  plain  house- 
hold simplicity,  but  every  way  pleasing,  unaffected,  and 
(as  respects  Mrs.  Wordsworth)  even  dignified.  Few 
persons  had  seen  so  little  as  this  lady  of  the  world.  She 
had  seen  nothing  of  high  Hfe,  for  she  had  seen  httle  of 

lo  any.  Consequently,  she  was  unacquainted  with  the  con- 
ventional modes  of  behavior,  prescribed  in  particular 
situations  by  high  breeding.  But,  as  these  modes  are 
little  more  than  the  product  of  dispassionate  good  sense, 
applied  to  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  it  is  surprising 

15  how  few  deficiencies  are  perceptible,  even  to  the  most 
vigilant  eye — or,  at  least,  essential  deficiencies — in  the 
general  demeanor  of  any  unaffected  young  woman, 
acting  habitually  under  a  sense  of  sexual  dignity  and 
natural  courtesy.     Miss  Wordsworth  had  seen  more  of 

20  life  and  even  of  good  company;  for  she  had  lived,  when 
quite  a  girl,  under  the  protection  of  Dr.  Cookson,  a  near 
relative,  canon  of  Windsor,  and  a  personal  favorite  of 
the  Royal  Family,  especially  of  George  III.  Conse- 
quently, she  ought  to  have  been  the  more  polished  of  the 

25  two;  and  yet,  from  greater  natural  aptitudes  for  refine- 
ment of  manner  in  her  sister-in-law,  and  partly,  perhaps, 
from  her  more  quiet  and  subdued  manner,  Mrs.  Words- 
worth would  have  been  pronounced  very  much  the  more 
lady-like  person. 

30  From  the  interest  which  attaches  to  anybody  so  nearly 
connected  as  these  two  ladies  with  a  great  poet,  I  have 
allowed  myself  a  larger  latitude  than  else  might  have 
been  justifiable  in  describing  them.  I  now  go  on  with 
my  narrative: — ■ 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  171 

I  was  ushered  up  a  Httle  flight  of  stairs,  fourteen  in 
all,  to  a  little  drawing-room,  or  whatever  the  reader 
chooses  to  call  it.  Wordsworth  himself  has  described 
the  fireplace  of  this  room  as  his 

"Half-kitchen  and  half-parlor  fire."  5 

It  was  not  fully  seven  feet  six  inches  high,  and,  in  other 
respects,  pretty  nearly  of  the  same  dimensions  as  the 
rustic  hall  below.  There  was,  however,  in  a  small  recess, 
a  library  of  perhaps  three  hundred  volumes,  which 
seemed  to  consecrate  the  room  as  the  poet's  study  and  10 
composing  room;  and  such  occasionally  it  was.  But 
far  oftener  he  both  studied,  as  I  found,  and  composed 
on  the  high  road.  I  had  not  been  two  minutes  at  the 
fireside,  when  in  came  Wordsworth,  returning  from  his 
friendly  attentions  to  the  travelers  below,  who,  it  15 
seemed,  had  been  over-persuaded  by  hospitable  solicita- 
tions to  stay  for  this  night  in  Grasmere,  and  to  make  out 
the  remaining  thirteen  miles  of  their  road  to  Keswick 
on  the  following  day.  Wordsworth  entered.  And 
"what-like"  to  use  a  Westmoreland  as  well  as  a  Scot-  20 
tish  expression — "what-like''  was  Wordsworth?  A  re- 
viewer in  Tait's  Magazine,  noticing  some  recent  col- 
lection of  literary  portraits,  gives  it  as  his  opinion 
that  Charles  Lamb's  head  was  the  finest  among  them. 
This  remark  may  have  been  justified  by  the  engraved  25 
portraits;  but,  certainly,  the  critic  would  have  canceled 
it,  had  he  seen  the  original  heads — at  least,  had  he  seen 
them  in  youth  or  in  maturity;  for  Charles  Lamb  bore 
age  with  less  disadvantage  to  the  intellectual  expression 
of  his  appearance  than  Wordsworth,  in  whom  a  sanguine  30 
complexion  had,  of  late  years,  usurped  upon  the  original 
bronze- tint;  and  this  change  of  hue,  and  change  in  the 
quahty  of  skin,  had  been  made  fourfold  more  conspicu- 


172  Thomas  DeQuincey 

ous,  and  more  unfavorable  in  its  general  effect,  by  the 
harsh  contrast  of  grizzled  hair  which  had  displaced  the 
original  brown.  No  change  in  personal  appearance  ever 
can  have  been  so  unfortunate;  for,  generally  speaking, 
5  whatever  other  disadvantages  old  age  may  bring  along 
with  it,  one  effect,  at  least  in  male  subjects,  has  a  com- 
pensating tendency — that  it  removes  any  tone  of  vigor 
too  harsh,  and  mitigates  the  expression  of  power  too 
unsubdued.     But,    in    Wordsworth,    the    effect    of    the 

10  change  has  been  to  substitute  an  air  of  animal  vigor, 
or,  at  least,  hardiness,  as  if  derived  from  constant  ex- 
posure to  the  wind  and  weather,  for  the  fine  somber 
complexion  which  he  once  wore,  resembling  that  of  a 
Venetian  senator  or  a  Spanish  monk. 

15  Here,  however,  in  describing  the  personal  appearance 
of  Wordsworth,  I  go  back,  of  course,  to  the  point  of 
time  at  which  I  am  speaking.  He  was,  upon  the  whole, 
not  a  well-made  man.  His  legs  were  pointedly  con- 
demned by  all  female  connoisseurs  in  legs;  not  that  they 

20  were  bad  in  any  way  which  would  force  itself  upon  your 
notice — there  was  no  absolute  deformity  about  them; 
and  undoubtedly  they  had  been  serviceable  legs  beyond 
the  average  standard  of  human  requisition;  for  I  cal- 
culate, upon  good  data,  that  with  these  identical  legs 

25  Wordsworth  must  have  traversed  a  distance  of  175,000 
to  180,000  English  miles — a  mode  of  exertion  which,  to 
him,  stood  in  the  stead  of  alcohol  and  all  other  stimulants 
whatsoever  to  the  animal  spirits;  to  which,  indeed,  he 
was  indebted  for  a  life  of  unclouded  happiness,  and  we 

30  for  much  of  what  is  most  excellent  in  his  writings.  But, 
useful  as  they  have  proved  themselves,  the  Words- 
worthian  legs  were  certainly  not  ornamental;  and  it  was 
really  a  pity,  as  I  agreed  with  a  lady  in  thinking,  that 
he  had  not  another  pair  for  evening  dress  parties — when 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  173 

no  boots  lend  their  friendly  aid  to  mask  our  imperfec- 
tions from  the  eyes  of  female  rigorists — ^those  elegantes 
formarum  spedatrices.  A  sculptor  would  certainly  have 
disapproved  of  their  contour.  But  the  worst  part  of 
Wordsworth's  person  was  the  bust;  there  was  a  narrow-  5 
ness  and  a  droop  about  the  shoulders  which  became 
striking,  and  had  an  effect  of  meanness,  when  brought 
into  close  juxtaposition  with  a  figure  of  a  more  statuesque 
build.     Once  on  a  summer  evening,  walking  in  the  Vale 

of  Langdale  with  Wordsworth,  his  sister,  and  Mr.  J ,  10 

a  native  Westmoreland  clergyman,  I  remember  that  Miss 
Wordsworth  was  positively  mortified  by  the  peculiar  illus- 
tration which  settled  upon  this  defective  conformation. 
Mr.  J — ■ — ■,  a  fine  towering  figure,  six  feet  high,  massy  and 
columnar  in  his  proportions,  happened  to  be  walking,  a  15 
little  in  advance,  with  Wordsworth;  Miss  Wordsworth 
and  myself  being  in  the  rear;  and  from  the  nature  of  the 
conversation  which  then  prevailed  in  our  front  rank,  some- 
thing or  other  about  money,  devises,  buying  and  selling, 
we  of  the  rear-guard  thought  it  requisite  to  preserve  20 
this  arrangement  for  a  space  of  three  miles  or  more; 
during  which  time,  at  intervals,  Miss  Wordsworth  would 
exclaim,  in  a  tone  of  vexation,  "Is  it  possible, — ^can  that 
be  William?  How  very  mean  he  looks!"  And  she  did 
not  conceal  a  mortification  that  seemed  really  painful,  25 
until  I,  for  my  part,  could  not  forbear  laughing  outright 
at  the  serious  interest  which  she  carried  into  this  trifle. 
She  was,  however,  right,  as  regarded  the  mere  visual 
judgment.  Wordsworth's  figure,  with  all  its  defects, 
was  brought  into  powerful  relief  by  one  which  had  been  30 
cast  in  a  more  square  and  massy  mould;  and  in  such  a 
case  it  impressed  a  spectator  with  a  sense  of  absolute 
meanness,  more  especially  when  viewed  from  behind  and 
not  counteracted  by  his  countenance;  and  yet  Words- 


174  Thomas  DeQuincey 

worth  was  of  a  good  height  (five  feet  ten),  and  not  a 
slender  man;  on  the  contrary,  by  the  side  of  Southey, 
his  limbs  looked  thick,  almost  in  a  disproportionate 
degree.  But  the  total  effect  of  Wordsworth's  person 
5  was  always  worse  in  a  state  of  motion.  Meantime,  his 
face — ^that  was  one  which  would  have  made  amends  for 
greater  defects  of  figure.  Many  such,  and  finer,  I  have 
seen  amongst  the  portraits  of  Titian,  and,  in  a  later 
period,  amongst  those  of  Vandyke,  from  the  great  era  of 

lo  Charles  I,  as  also  from  the  court  of  Elizabeth  and  of 
Charles  II,  but  none  which  has  more  impressed  me  in 
my  own  time.  / 

Haydon,  in  his  great  picture  of  Christ's  Entry  into 
Jerusalem,  has  introduced  Wordsworth  in  the  character 

IS  of  a  disciple  attending  his  Divine  Master,  and  Voltaire 
in  the  character  of  a  sneering  Jewish  elder.  This  fact 
is  well  known;  and,  as  the  picture  itself  is  tolerably 
well  known  to  the  public  eye,  there  are  multitudes  now 
living  who  will  have  seen  a  very  impressive  likeness  of 

20  Wordsworth — some  consciously,  some  not  suspecting 
it.  There  will,  however,  always  be  many  who  have  not 
seen  any  portrait  at  all  of  Wordsworth;  and  therefore  I 
will,  describe  its  general  outline  and  effect.  It  was  a  face 
of  the  long  order,  often  falsely  classed  as  oval:  but  a 

25  greater  mistake  is  made  by  many  people  in  supposing 
the  long  face  which  prevailed  so  remarkably  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan and  Carolinian  periods  to  have  become  extinct 
in  our  own.  Miss  Ferrier,  in  one  of  her  novels  {Mar- 
riage   I    think),    makes   a   Highland   girl   protest   that 

30  "no  Englishman  with  his  round  face''  shall  ever  wean 
her  heart  from  her  own  country;  but  England  is  not 
the  land  of  round  faces;  and  those  have  observed 
little,  indeed,  who  think  so:  France  it  is  that  grows  the 
round  face,  and  in  so  large  a  majority  of  her  provinces 


Alec  ting  with  Wordsworth  175 

that  it  has  become  one  of  the  national  characteristics. 
And  the  remarkable  impression  which  an  Englishman 
receives  from  the  eternal  recurrence  of  the  orbicular 
countenance  proves  of  itself,  without  any  conscious 
testimony,  how  the  fact  stands;  in  the  blind  sense  of  a  5 
monotony,  not  felt  elsewhere,  lies  involved  an  argument 
that  cannot  be  gainsaid.  Besides,  even  upon  an  a 
priori  argument,  how  is  it  possible  that  the  long  face 
so  prevalent  in  England,  by  all  confession,  in  certain 
splendid  eras  of  our  history,  should  have  had  time,  in  10 
some  five  or  six  generations,  to  grow  extinct?  Again, 
the  character  of  face  varies  essentially  in  different  prov- 
inces. Wales  has  no  connection  in  this  respect  with 
Devonshire,  nor  Kent  with  Yorkshire,  nor  either  with 
Westmoreland.  England,  it  is  true,  tends,  beyond  all  15 
known  examples,  to  a  general  amalgamation  of  differ- 
ences, by  means  of  its  unrivaled  freedom  of  inter- 
course. Yet,  even  in  England,  law  and  necessity  have 
opposed  as  yet  such  and  so  many  obstacles  to  the  free 
diffusion  of  labor  that  every  generation  occupies,  by  20 
at  least  five-sixths  of  its  numbers,  the  ground  of  its 
ancestors. 

The  movable  part  of  a  population  is  chiefly  the  higher 
part;  and  it  is  the  lower  classes  that,  in  every  nation, 
compose  the  fundus,  in  which  lies  latent  the  national  25 
face,  as  well  as  the  national  character.  Each  exists  here 
in  racy  purity  and  integrity,  not  disturbed  in  the  one  by 
alien  intermarriages,  nor  in  the  other  by  novelties  of 
opinion,  or  other  casual  effects,  derived  from  education 
and  reading.  Now,  look  into  this  fundtis,  and  you  will  30 
find,  in  many  districts,  no  such  prevalence  of  the  round 
orbicular  face  as  some  people  erroneously  suppose;  and 
in  Westmoreland,  especially,  the  ancient  long  face  of  the 
Elizabethan    period,   powerfully    resembling    in    all    its 


176  Thomas   DeQulncey 

lineaments  the  ancient  Roman  face,  and  often  (though 
not  so  uniformly)  the  face  of  northern  Italy  in  modern 
times.  The  face  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  as  Irving,  the 
pulpit  orator,  once  remarked  to  me,  was  the  indigenous 
5  face  of  the  Border:  the  mouth,  which  was  bad,  and  the 
entire  lower  part  of  the  face,  are  seen  repeated  in  thou- 
sands of  working-men;  or,  as  Irving  chose  to  illustrate 
his  position,  "in  thousands  of  Border  horse- jockeys." 
In  like  manner,  Wordsworth's  face  was,  if  not  absolutely 

10  the  indigenous  face  of  the  Lake  district,  at  any  rate  a 
variety  of  that  face,  a  modification  of  that  original  type. 
The  head  was  well  filled  out;  and  there,  to  begin  with, 
was  a  great  advantage  over  the  head  of  Charles  Lamb, 
which  was  absolutely  truncated  in  the  posterior  region — 

15  sawn  off,  as  it  were,  by  no  timid  sawyer.  The  forehead 
was  not  remarkably  lofty — and,  by  the  way,  some  artists, 
in  their  ardor  for  realizing  their  phrenological  precon- 
ceptions, not  suffering  nature  to  surrender  quietly  and 
by  slow  degrees  her  real  alphabet  of  signs  and  hiero- 

20  glyphic  characters,  bu.t  forcing  her  language  prematurely 
into  conformity  with  their  own  crude  speculations,  have 
given  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  a  pile  of  forehead  which  is 
unpleasing  and  cataphysical,  in  fact,  a  caricature  of  any- 
thing that  is  ever  seen  in  nature,  and  would  (if  real)  be 

25  esteemed  a  deformity;  in  one  instance — ^that  which 
was  introduced  in  some  annual  or  other — the  forehead 
makes  about  two-thirds  of  the  entire  face.  Words- 
worth's forehead  is  also  liable  to  caricature  misrepre- 
sentations in  these  days  of  phrenology:  but,  whatever 

30  it  may  appear  to  be  in  any  man's  fanciful  portrait,  the 
real  living  forehead,  as  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing 
it  for  more  than  five-and-twenty  years,  is  not  remark- 
able for  its  height;  but  it  is,  perhaps,  remarkable  for  its 
breadth  and  expansive  development.    Neither  are  the 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  177 

eyes  of  Wordsworth  ''large,"  as  is  erroneously  stated 
somewhere  in  Peter's  Letters;  on  the  contrary,  they 
are  (I  think)  rather  small;  but  that  does  not  interfere 
with  their  effect,  which  at  times  is  fine,  and  suitable  to 
his  intellectual  character.  At  times,  I  say,  for  the  depth  5 
and  subtlety  of  eyes,  even  their  coloring  (as  to  con- 
densation or  dilation),  varies  exceedingly  with  the  state 
of  the  stomach;  and,  if  young  ladies  were  aware  of  the 
magical  transformations  which  can  be  wrought  in  the 
depth  and  sweetness  of  the  eye  by  a  few  weeks'  walking  10 
exercise,  I  fancy  we  should  see  their  habits  in  this  point 
altered  greatly  for  the  better.  I  have  seen  Wordsworth's 
eyes  oftentimes  affected  powerfully  in  this  respect;  his 
eyes  are  not,  under  any  circumstances,  bright,  lustrous, 
or  piercing;  but,  after  a  long  day's  toil  in  walking,  I  15 
have  seen  them  assume  an  appearance  the  most  solemn 
and  spiritual  that  it  is  possible  for  the  human  eye  to 
wear.  The  light  which  resides  in  them  is  at  no  time 
a  superficial  light;  but,  under  favorable  accidents,  it 
is  a  light  which  seems  to  come  from  unfathomed  depths:  20 
in  fact,  it  is  more  truly  entitled  to  be  held  "the  light 
that  never  was  on  land  or  sea,"  a  light  radiating  from 
some  far  spiritual  world,  than  any  the  most  idealizing 
that  ever  yet  a  painter's  hand  created.  The  nose,  a 
little  arched,  is  large;  which,  by  the  way  (according  to  25 
a  natural  phrenology,  existing  centuries  ago  amongst 
some  of  the  lowest  amongst  the  human  species),  has 
always  been  accounted  an  unequivocal  expression  of 
animal  appetites  organically  strong.  And  that  expressed 
the  simple  truth:  Wordsworth's  intellectual  passions  30 
were  fervent  and  strong:  but  they  rested  upon  a  basis 
of  preternatural  animal  sensibility  dift'used  through  all 
the  animal  passions  (or  appetites);  and  something  of 
that  will  be  found  to  hold  of  all  poets  who  have  been 


178  Thomas  DeQuincey 

great  by  original  force  and  power,  not  (as  Virgil)  by 
means  of  fine  management  and  exquisite  artifice  of 
composition  applied  to  their  conceptions.  The  mouth, 
and  the  whole  circumjacencies  of  the  mouth,  composed 
5  the  strongest  feature  in  Wordsworth's  face;  there  was 
nothing  specially  to  be  noticed  that  I  know  of  in  the  mere 
outline  of  the  lips;  but  the  swell  and  protrusion  of  the 
parts  above  and  around  the  mouth  are  both  noticeable 
in  themselves,  and  also  because  they  remind  me  of  a 

10  very  interesting  fact  which  I  discovered  about  three 
years  after  this  my  first  visit  to  Wordsworth. 

Being  a  great  collector  of  everything  relating  to  Mil- 
ton, I  had  naturally  possessed  myself,  whilst  yet  very 
young,  of  Richardson  the  painter's  thick  octavo  volume 

15  of  notes  on  the  Paradise  Lost.  It  happened,  how- 
ever, that  my  copy,  in  consequence  of  that  mania  for 
portrait  collecting  which  has  stripped  so  many  English 
classics  of  their  engraved  portraits,  wanted  the  portrait 
of  Milton.     Subsequently  I  ascertained  that  it  ought  to 

20  have  had  a  very  good  likeness  of  the  great  poet;  and  I 
never  rested  until  I  procured  a  copy  of  the  book  which 
had  not  suffered  in  this  respect  by  the  fatal  admiration 
of  the  amateur.  The  particular  copy  offered  to  me  was 
one  which  had  been  priced  unusually  high,  on  account  of 

25  the  unusually  fine  specimen  which  it  contained  of  the 
engraved  portrait.  This,  for  a  particular  reason,  I  was 
exceedingly  anxious  to  see;  and  the  reason  was — that, 
according  to  an  anecdote  reported  by  Richardson  him- 
self, this  portrait,  of  all  that  were  shown  to  her,  was  the 

30  only  one  acknowledged  by  Milton's  last  surviving 
daughter  to  be  a  strong  likeness  of  her  father.  And  her 
involuntary  gestures  concurred  with  her  deliberate 
words: — for,  on  seeing  all  the  rest,  she  was  silent  and 
inanimate;  but  the  very  instant  she  beheld  that  crayon 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  179 

drawing  from  which  is  derived  the  engraved  head  in 
Richardson's  book,  she  burst  out  into  a  rapture  of  pas- 
sionate recognition;  exclaiming — "That  is  my  father! 
that  is  my  dear  father!"  Naturally,  therefore,  after 
such  a  testimony,  so  much  stronger  than  any  other  5 
person  in  the  world  could  offer  to  the  authentic  value 
of  this  portrait,  I  was  eager  to  see  it. 

Judge  of  my  astonishment  when,  in  this  portrait  of 
Milton,  I  saw  a  likeness  nearly  perfect  of  Wordsworth, 
better  by  much  than  any  which  I  have  since  seen  of  those  ic 
expressly  painted  for  himself.     The  likeness  is  tolerably 
preserved  in  that  by  Carruthers,  in  which  one  of  the  little 
Rydal  waterfalls,  etc.,  composes  a  background;  yet  this 
is  much  inferior,  as  a  mere  portrait  of  Wordsworth,  to 
the  Richardson  head  of  Milton;  and  this,  I  believe,  is  the  15 
last  which  represents  Wordsworth  in  the  vigor  of  his 
power.     The  rest,  which  I  have  not  seen,  may  be  better 
as  works  of  art  (for  anything  I  know  to  the  contrary), 
but  they  must  labor  under  the  great  disadvantage  of 
presenting  the  features  when  "defeatured,"  in  the  degree  20 
and  the  way  I  have  described,  by  the  peculiar  ravages 
of  old  age,  as  it  affects  this  family;  for  it  is  noticed  of 
the  Wordsworths,  by  those  who  are  familiar  with  their 
peculiarities,  that  in  their  very  blood  and  constitutional 
differences   lie  hidden   causes   that  are  able,  in  some  25 
mysterious  way, 

"Those  shocks  of  passion  to  prepare 
That  kill  the  bloom  before  its  time, 
And  blanch,  without  the  owner's  crime, 

The  most  resplendent  hair."  30 

Some  people,  it  is  notorious,  live  faster  by  much  than 
others,  the  oil  is  burned  out  sooner  in  one  constitution 
than  another:  and  the  cause  of  this  may  be  various; 


i8o  Thomas  DeQuIncey 

but  in  the  Wordsworths  one  part  of  the  cause  is,  no 
doubt,  the  secret  fire  of  a  temperament  too  fervid;  the 
self-consuming  energies  of  the  brain,  that  gnaw  at  the 
heart  and  life-strings  for  ever.  In  that  account  which 
5  The  Excursion  presents  to  us  of  an  imaginary  Scots- 
man who,  to  still  the  tumult  of  his  heart,  when  visit- 
ing the  cataracts  of  a  mountainous  region,  obliges 
himself  to  study  the  laws  of  light  and  color  as  they 
affect  the  rainbow  of  the  stormy  waters,  vainly  attempt- 

lo  ing  to  mitigate  the  fever  which  consumed  him  by  en- 
tangling his  mind  in  profound  speculations;  raising  a 
cross-fire  of  artillery  from  the  subtilizing  intellect,  under 
the  vain  conceit  that  in  this  way  he  could  silence  the 
mighty  battery  of  his  impassioned  heart:  there  we  read 

IS  a  picture  of  Wordsworth  and  his  own  youth.  In  Miss 
Wordsworth  every  thoughtful  observer  might  read  the 
same  self-consuming  style  of  thought.  And  the  effect 
upon  each  was  so  powerful  for  the  promotion  of  a  pre- 
mature old  age,  and  of  a  premature  expression  of  old 

20  age,  that  strangers  invariably  supposed  them  fifteen  to 
twenty  years  older  than  they  were.  And  I  remember 
Wordsworth  once  laughingly  reporting  to  me,  on  re- 
turning from  a  short  journey  in  1809,  a  little  personal 
anecdote,  which  sufficiently  showed  what  was  the  spon- 

25  taneous  impression  upon  that  subject  of  casual  strangers, 
whose  feelings  were  not  confused  by  previous  knowledge 
of  the  truth.  He  was  traveling  by  a  stagecoach,  and 
seated  outside,  amongst  a  good  half-dozen  of  fellow- 
passengers.     One  of  these,  an  elderly  man,  who  confessed 

30  to  having  passed  the  grand  climacterical  year  (9  multi- 
plied into  7)  of  63,  though  he  did  not  say  precisely  by 
how  many  years,  said  to  Wordsworth,  upon  some  an- 
ticipations which  they  had  been  mutually  discussing  of 
changes  likely  to  result  from  enclosures,  etc.,  then  going 


Meetlii";  with  Wordsworth  i8l 


'o 


on  or  projecting — "Ay,  ay,  another  dozen  of  years  will 
show  us  strange  sights;  but  you  and  I  can  hardly  expect 
to  see  them." — "How  so?"  said  Wordsworth.  "How 
so,  my  friend?  How  old  do  you  take  me  to  be?" — "  Oh, 
I  beg  pardon,"  said  the  other;  "I  meant  no  offence —  5 
but  what?"  looking  at  Wordsworth  more  attentively — 
"you'll  never  see  threescore,  I'm  of  opinion";  meaning 
to  say  that  Wordsworth  had  seen  it  already.  And,  to 
show  that  he  was  not  singular  in  so  thinking,  he  ap- 
pealed to  all  the  other  passengers;  and  the  motion  10 
passed  {nem.  con.)  that  Wordsworth  was  rather  over 
than  under  sixty.  Upon  this  he  told  them  the  literal 
truth — that  he  had  not  yet  accomplished  his  thirty-ninth 
year.  "God  bless  me!"  said  the  climacterical  man;  "so 
then,  after  all,  you'll  have  a  chance  to  see  your  childer  15 
get  up  like,  and  get  settled!  Only  to  think  of  that!" 
And  so  closed  the  conversation,  leaving  to  Wordsworth 
an  undeniable  record  of  his  own  prejnaturely  expressed 
old  age  in  this  unaffected  astonishment,  amongst  a 
whole  party  of  plain  men,  that  he  could  really  belong  to  20 
a  generation  of  the  forward-looking,  who  live  by  hope; 
and  might  reasonably  expect  to  see  a  child  of  seven  years 
old  matured  into  a  man.  x\nd  yet,  as  Wordsworth 
lived  into  his  82nd  year,  it  is  plain  that  the  premature 
expression  of  decay  does  not  argue  any  real  decay.  25 

Returning  to  the  question  of  portraits,  I  would  ob- 
serve that  this  Richardson  engraving  of  Milton  has  the 
advantage  of  presenting,  not  only  by  far  the  best  likeness 
of  Wordsworth,  but  of  Wordsworth  in  the  prime  of  his 
powers — a  point  essential  in  the  case  of  one  so  liable  to  30 
premature  decay.  It  may  be  supposed  that  I  took  an 
early  opportunity  of  carrying  the  book  down  to  Gras- 
mere,  and  calling  for  the  opinions  of  Wordsworth's 
family  upon  this  most  remarkable  coincidence.     Not 


1 82  Thomas  DeQuincey 

one  member  of  that  family  but  was  as  much  impressed 
as  myself  with  the  accuracy  of  the  likeness.  All  the 
peculiarities  even  were  retained — a  drooping  appearance 
of  the  eyelids,  that  remarkable  swell  which  I  have  noticed 
5  about  the  mouth,  the  way  in  which  the  hair  lay  upon  the 
forehead.  In  two  points  only  there  was  a  deviation 
from  the  rigorous  truth  of  Wordsworth's  features — ■ 
the  face  was  a  little  too  short  and  too  broad,  and  the 
eyes  were  too  large.     There  was  also  a  WTeath  of  laurel 

lo  about  the  head,  which  (as  Wordsworth  remarked)  dis- 
turbed the  natural  expression  of  the  whole  picture;  else, 
and  with  these  few  allowances,  he  also  admitted  that 
the  resemblance  was,  for  that  period  of  his  life,  perfect, 
or  as  nearly  so  as  art  could  accomplish. 

IS  I  have  gone  into  so  large  and  circumstantial  a  review 
of  "my  recollections  on  this  point  as  would  have  been 
trifling  and  tedious  in  excess,  had  these  recollections 
related  to  a  less  important  man;  but  I  have  a  certain 
knowledge  that  the  least  of  them  will  possess  a  lasting 

20  and  a  growing  interest  in  connection  with  William 
Wordsworth.  How  peculiar,  how  different  from  the 
interest  which  we  grant  to  the  ideas  of  a  great  phil- 
osopher, a  great  mathematician,  or  a  great  reformer,  is 
that  burning  interest  which  settles  on  the  great  poets 

25  who  have  made  themselves  necessary  to  the  human 
heart;  who  have  first  brought  into  consciousness,  and 
have  clothed  in  words,  those  grand  catholic  feelings  that 
belong  to  the  grand  catholic  situations  of  life  through 
all  its  stages;  who  have  clothed  them  in  such  words  that 

so  human  wit  despairs  of  bettering  them!  Mighty  were 
the  powers,  solemn  and  serene  is  the  memory,  of  Archi- 
medes; and  Apollonius  shines  like  "the  starry  Galileo" 
in  the  firmament  of  human  genius;  yet  how  frosty  is  the 
feeling  associated  with  these  names  by  comparison  with 


Meeting  with  Wordsworth  183 

that  which,  upon  every  sunny  lawn,  by  the  side  of  every 
ancient  forest,  even  in  the  farthest  depths  of  Canada, 
many  a  young  innocent  girl,  perhaps  at  this  very  moment 
■ — looking  now  wdth'fear  to  the  dark  recesses  of  the  in- 
finite forest,  and  now  with  love  to  the  pages  of  the  5 
infinite  poet,  until  the  fear  is  absorbed  and  forgotten  in 
the  love — cherishes  in  her  heart  for  the  name  and  person 
of  Shakespeare! 

The    English   language    is  traveling  fast  toward  the 
fulfilment  of  its  destiny.     Through  the  influence  of  the  10 
dreadful  Republic^  that  within  the  last  thirty  years  has 
run  through  all  the  stages  of  infancy  into  the  first  stage 
of  maturity,  and  through  the  English  colonies — African, 
Canadian,    Indian,    Australian — the    English    language 
(and,  therefore,  the  English  literature)  is  running  for-  15 
ward    toward    its  ultimate  mission  of  eating  up,  like 
Aaron's  rod,   all  other  languages.     Even   the   German 
and  the  Spanish  will  inevitably  sink  before  it;  perhaps 
within  100  or  150  years.     In  the  recesses  of  California, 
in  the  vast  solitudes  of  Australia,  The  Churchyard  amongst  20 
the    Mountains,    from    Wordsworth's    Excursion,    and 
many  a  scene  of  his  shorter  poems,  will  be  read,  even  as 

^  Not  many  months  ago,  the  blind  hostility  of  the  Irish  news- 
paper editors  in  America  forged  a  ludicrous  estimate  of  the  Irish 
numerical  preponderance  in  the  United  States,  from  which  it  was 
inferred,  as  at  least  a  possibiUty,  that  the  Irish  Celtic  language 
might  come  to  dispute  the  preeminence  with  the  English.  Others 
anticipated  the  same  destiny  for  the  German.  But,  in  the  mean- 
time, the  unresting  career  of  the  law-courts,  of  commerce,  and  of 
the  national  senate,  that  cannot  suspend  themselves  for  an  hour, 
reduce  the  case  to  this  dilemma:  If  the  Irish  and  the  Germans 
in  the  United  States  adapt  their  general  schemes  of  education  to 
the  service  of  their  public  ambition,  they  must  begin  by  training 
themselves  to  the  use  of  the  language  now  prevailing  on  all  the 
available  stages  of  ambition.  On  the  other  hand,  by  refusing  to  do 
this,  they  lose  in  the  very  outset  every  point  of  advantage.  In 
other  words,  adopting  the  English,  they  renounce  the  contest — 
not  adopting  it,  they  disquahfy  themselves  for  the  contest. 


184  Thomas  DeQuincey 

now  Shakespeare  is  read  amongst  the  forests  of  Canada. 
All  which  relates  to  the  writer  of  these  poems  will  then 
bear  a  value  of  the  same  kind  as  that  which  attaches  to 
our  personal  memorials  (unhappily  so  slender)  of 
5  Shakespeare. 

Let  me  now  attempt  to  trace,  in  a  brief  outline,  the 
chief  incidents  in  the  life  of  William  Wordsworth,  which 
are  interesting,  not  only  in  virtue  of  their  illustrious 
subject,  but  also  as  exhibiting  a  most  remarkable  (almost 

10  a  providential)  arrangement  of  circumstances,  all  tending 
to  one  result — that  of  insulating  from  worldly  cares,  and 
carrying  onward  from  childhood  to  the  grave,  in  a  state 
of  serene  happiness,  one  who  was  unfitted  for  daily  toil, 
and,  at  all  events,  who  could  not,  under  such  demands 

15  upon  his  time  and  anxieties,  have  prosecuted  those  genial 
labors  in  which  all  mankind  have  an  interest. 

LEVANA  AND  OUR  LADIES  OF  SORROW 

Oftentimes  at  Oxford  I  saw  Levana  in  my  dreams.  I 
knew  her  by  her  Roman  symbols.  Who  is  Levana? 
Reader,  that  do  not  pretend  to  have  leisure  for  very  much 

20  scholarship,  you  will  not  be  angry  with  me  for  telling 
you.  Levana  was  the  Roman  goddess  that  performed 
for  the  new-born  infant  the  earliest  office  of  ennobling 
kindness — tyj^ical,  by  its  mode,  of  that  grandeur  which 
belongs  to  man  everywhere,  and  of  that  benignity  in 

25  powers  invisible  which  even  in  pagan  worlds  sometimes 
descends  to  sustain  it.  At  the  very  moment  of  birth, 
just  as  the  infant  tasted  for  the  first  time  the  atmosphere 
of  our  troubled  planet,  it  was  laid  on  the  ground.  That 
might  bear  different  interpretations.     But  immediately, 

30  lest  so  grand  a  creature  should  grovel  there  for  more 
than  one  instant,  either  the  paternal  hand,  as  proxy  for 


Levana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow       185 

the  goddess  Levana,  or  some  near  kinsman,  as  proxy  for 
the  father,  raised  it  upright,  bade  it  look  erect  as  the  king  . 
of  all  this  world,  and  presented  its  forehead  to  the  stars, 
saying,  perhaps,  in  his  heart,  "Behold  what  is  greater 
than  yourselves!"  This  symbolic  act  represented  the  5 
function  of  Levana.  And  that  mysterious  lady,  who 
never  revealed  her  face  (except  to  me  in  dreams),  but 
always  acted  by  delegation,  had  her  name  from  the  Latin 
verb  (as  still  it  is  the  Italian  verb)  levare,  "to  raise  aloft." 

This  is  the  ex-planation  of  Levana.     And  hence  it  has  10 
arisen  that  some  people  have  understood  by  Levana  the 
tutelary  power  that  controls  the  education  of  the  nursery. 
She,  that  would  not  suffer  at  his  birth  even  a  prefigurative 
or  mimic  degradation  for  her  awful  ward,  far  less  could  be 
supposed  to  suffer  the  real  degradation  attaching  to  the  15 
non-development  of  his  powers.     She  therefore  watches 
over  human  education.     Now,  the  word  ediXco,  with  the 
penultimate  short,  was  derived  (by  a  process  often  ex- 
emplified in  the  crystallization  of  languages)  from  the 
word   educo,   with   the  penultimate   long.     Whatsoever  20 
educes,  or  develops,  educates.     By  the  education  of  Levana, 
therefore,  is  meant,  not  the  poor  machinery  that  moves 
by  spelling-books  and  grammars,  but  by  that  mighty 
system  of  central  forces  hidden  in  the  deep  bosom  of 
human  life,  which  by  passion,  by  strife,  by  temptation,  25 
by  the  energies  of  resistance,  works  forever  upon  chil- 
dren, resting  not  day  or  night,  any  more  than  the  mighty 
wheel  of  day  and  night  themselves,  whose  moments,  like 
restless  spokes,  are  glimmering  forever  as  they  revolve. 

If,   then,   these  are  the  ministries  by  which  Levana  30 
works,  how  profoundly  must  she  reverence  the  agencies 
of  grief!     But  you,  reader,  think  that  children  generally 
are  not  liable  to  grief  such  as  mine.     There  are  two 
senses   in   the  word  "generally" — the  sense  of  Euclid, 


1 86  Thomas  DeQuIncey 

where  it  means  "universally"  (or  in  the  whole  extent 
of  the  genus),  and  a  foolish  sense  of  this  world,  where  it 
means  "usually."  Now,  I  am  far  from  saying  that  chil- 
dren universally  are  capable  of  grief  like  mine.  But  there 
5  are  more  than  you  ever  heard  of  who  die  of  grief  in  this 
island  of  ours.  I  will  tell  you  a  common  case.  The 
rules  of  Eton  require  that  a  boy  on  the  "foundation" 
should  be  there  twelve  years:  he  is  superannuated  at 
eighteen,  consequently  he  must  come  at  six.     Children 

lo  torn  away  from  mothers  and  sisters  at  that  age  not  un- 
frequently  die.  I  speak  of  what  I  know.  The  com- 
plaint is  not  entered  by  the  registrar  as  grief;  but  that 
it  is.  Grief  of  that  sort,  and  at  that  age,  has  killed  more 
than  ever  have  been  counted  amongst  its  martyrs. 

15  Therefore  it  is  that  Levana  often  communes  with  the 
powers  that  shake  man's  heart;  therefore  it  is  that  she 
dotes  upon  grief.  "These  ladies,"  said  I  softly  to  myself, 
on  seeing  the  ministers  with  whom  Levana  was  convers- 
ing, "these  are  the  Sorrows;  and  they  are  three  in  number: 

20  as  the  Graces  are  three,  who  dress  man's  life  with  beauty; 
the  ParccB  are  three,  who  weave  the  dark  arras  of  man's 
life  in  their  mysterious  loom,  always  with  colors  sad  in 
part,  sometimes  angry  with  tragic  crimson  and  black; 
the  Furies  are  three,  who  visit  with  retributions,  called 

25  from  the  other  side  of  the  grave,  offences  that  walk 
upon  this;  and  once  even  the  Muses  were  but  three,  who 
fit  the  harp,  the  trumpet,  or  the  lute  to  the  great  burdens 
of  man's  impassioned  creations.  These  are  the  Sorrows, 
all  three  of  whom  I  know."     The  last  words  I  say  now; 

30  but  in  Oxford  I  said,  "one  of  whom  I  know,  and  the 
others  too  surely  I  shall  know."  For  already,  in  my 
fervent  youth,  I  saw  (dimly  relieved  upon  the  dark  back- 
ground of  my  dreams)  the  imperfect  lineaments  of  the 
awful  Sisters. 


Levana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow       187 

These  Sisters — 'by  what  name  shall  we  call  them? 
If  I  say  simply  "The  Sorrows, "  there  will  be  a  chance  of 
mistaking  the  term :  it  might  be  understood  of  individual 
sorrow,  separate  cases  of  sorrow,  whereas  I  want  a  term 
expressing  the  mighty  abstractions  that  incarnate  them-  5 
selves  in  all  individual  sufferings  of  man's  heart;  and  I 
wish  to  have  these  abstractions  presented  as  impersona- 
tions, that  is,  as  clothed  with  human  attributes  of  life, 
and  with  functions  pointing  to  flesh.  Let  us  call  them, 
therefore.  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow.  10 

I  know  them  thoroughly,  and  have  walked  in  all  their 
kingdoms.  Three  sisters  they  are,  of  one  mysterious 
household;  and  their  paths  are  wide  apart;  but  of  their 
dominion  there  is  no  end.  Them  I  saw  often  conversing 
with  Levana,  and  sometimes  about  myself.  Do  they  15 
talk,  then?  Oh,  no!  Mighty  phantoms  like  these  dis- 
dain the  infirmities  of  language.  They  may  utter  voices 
through  the  organs  of  man  when  they  dwell  in  human 
hearts,  but  amongst  themselves  is  no  voice  nor  sound; 
eternal  silence  reigns  in  their  kingdoms.  They  spoke  20 
not  as  they  talked  with  Levana;  they  whispered  not; 
they  sang  not ;  though  oftentimes  methought  they  might 
have  sung:  for  I  upon  earth  had  heard  their  mysteries 
oftentimes  deciphered  by  harp  and  timbrel,  by  dulcimer 
and  organ.  Like  God,  whose  servants  they  are,  they  25 
utter  their  pleasure,  not  by  sounds  that  perish  or  by 
words  that  go  astray,  but  by  signs  in  heaven,  by  changes 
on  earth,  by  pulses  in  secret  rivers,  heraldries  painted  on 
darkness,  and  hieroglyphics  written  on  the  tablets  of 
the  brain.  They  wheeled  in  mazes;  /  spelled  the  steps.  30 
They  telegraphed  from  afar;  /  read  the  signals.  They 
conspired  together;  and  on  the  mirrors  of  darkness  my 
eye  traced  the  plots.  Theirs  were  the  symbols;  mine  are 
the  words. 


1 88  Thomas  DeQuincey 

What  is  it  the  Sisters  are?     What  is  it  that  they  do? 

Let  me  describe  their  form  and  their  presence;  if  form 

it  were  that  still  fluctuated  in  its  outline,  or  presence  it 

were  that  forever  advanced  to  the  front  or  forever  receded 

5  amongst  shades. 

The  eldest  of  the  three  is  named  Mater  Lachrymarum, 
Our  Lady  of  Tears.  She  it  is  that  night  and  day  raves 
and  moans,  calling  for  vanished  faces.  She  stood  in 
Rama,  where  a  voice  was  heard  of  lamentation — -Rachel 

lo  weeping  for  her  children,  and  refusing  to  be  comforted. 
She  it  was  that  stood  in  Bethlehem  on  the  night  when 
Herod's  sword  swept  its  nurseries  of  Innocents,  and  the 
little  feet  were  stiffened  forever,  which,  heard  at  times 
as  they  trotted  along  floors  overhead,  woke  pulses  of 

15  love  in  household  hearts  that  were  not  unmarked  in 
heaven.  Her  eyes  are  sweet  and  subtle,  wild  and  sleepy, 
by  turns;  oftentimes  rising  to  the  clouds,  oftentimes 
challenging  the  heavens.  She  wears  a  diadem  round  her 
head.     And    I   knew   by    childish    memories    that    she 

20  could  go  abroad  upon  the  winds,  when  she  heard  the 
sobbing  of  litanies  or  the  thundering  of  organs,  and 
when  she  beheld  the  mustering  of  summer  clouds.  This 
Sister,  the  elder,  it  is  that  carries  keys  more  than  papal 
at  her  girdle,  which  open  every  cottage  and  every  palace. 

25  She,  to  my  knowledge,  sat  all  last  summer  by  the  bedside 
of  the  blind  beggar,  him  that  so  often  and  so  gladly  I 
talked  with,  whose  pious  daughter,  eight  years  old,  with 
the  sunny  countenance,  resisted  the  temptations  of  play 
and  village  mirth,  to  travel  all  day  long  on  dusty  roads 

30  with  her  afflicted  father.  For  this  did  God  send  her  a 
great  reward.  In  the  springtime  of  the  year,  and 
whilst  yet  her  own  spring  was  budding,  he  recalled  her  to 
himself.  But  her  blind  father  mourns  forever  over  her; 
still  he  dreams  at  midnight  that  the  little  guiding  hand 


Lcvana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow       189 

is  locked  within  his  own;  and  still  he  wakens  to  a  darkness 
that  is  now  within  a  second  and  a  deeper  darkness.  This 
Mater  Lachrymarum  also  has  been  sitting  all  this  winter 
of  1844-5  within  the  bedchamber  of  the  Czar,  bringing 
before  his  eyes  a  daughter  (not  less  pious)  that  vanished  5 
to  God  not  less  suddenly,  and  left  behind  her  a  darkness 
not  less  profound.  By  the  power  of  the  keys  it  is  that 
Our  Lady  of  Tears  glides,  a  ghostly  intruder,  into  the 
chambers  of  sleepless  men,  sleepless  women,  sleepless 
children,  from  Ganges  to  the  Nile,  from  Nile  to  Mississippi.  10 
And  her,  because  she  is  the  first-born  of  her  house  and 
has  the  widest  empire,  let  us  honor  with  the  title  of 
"Madonna." 

The  second  Sister  is  called  Mater  Suspiriorum,  Our 
Lady  of  Sighs.  She  never  scales  the  clouds,  nor  walks  15 
abroad  upon  the  winds.  She  wears  no  diadem.  And 
her  eyes,  if  they  were  even  seen,  would  be  neither  sweet 
nor  subtle;  no  man  could  read  their  story;  they  would 
be  found  filled  with  perishing  dreams  and  with  wrecks  of 
forgotten  delirium.  But  she  raises  not  her  eyes;  her  20 
head,  on  which  sits  a  dilapidated  turban,  droops  forever, 
forever  fastens  on  the  dust.  She  weeps  not.  She  groans 
not.  But  she  sighs  inaudibly  at  intervals.  Her  sister 
Madonna  is  oftentimes  stormy  and  frantic,  raging  in 
the  highest  against  heaven,  and  demanding  back  her  25 
darlings.  But  Our  Lady  of  Sighs  never  clamors,  never 
defies,  dreams  not  of  rebellious  aspirations.  She  is 
humble  to  abjectness.  Hers  is  the  meekness  that 
belongs  to  the  hopeless.  Murmur  she  may,  but  it  is 
in  her  sleep.  Whisper  she  may,  but  it  is  to  herself  in  the  30 
twilight.  Mutter  she  does  at  times,  but  it  is  in  solitary 
places  that  are  desolate  as  she  is  desolate,  in  ruined  cities, 
and  when  the  sun  has  gone  down  to  his  rest.  This 
Sister  is  the  visitor  of  the  Pariah,  of  the  Jew,  of  the  bonds- 


190  Thomas  DcQuincey 

man  to  the  oar  in  the  Mediterranean  galleys;  of  the 
English  criminal  in  Norfolk  Island,  blotted  out  from 
the  books  of  remembrance  in  sweet  far-off  England;  of 
the  baffled  penitent  reverting  his  eyes  forever  upon  a 
S  solitary  grave,  which  to  him  seems  the  altar  overthrown 
of  some  past  and  bloody  sacrifice,  on  which  altar  no 
oblation  can  now  be  availing,  whether  toward  pardon 
that  he  might  implore,  or  toward  reparation  that  he 
might   attempt.     Every   slave   that   at   noonday   looks 

10  up  to  the  tropical  sun  with  timid  reproach,  as  he  points 
with  one  hand  to  the  earth,  our  general  mother,  but  for 
him  a  step-mother,  as  he  points  with  the  other  hand  to 
the  Bible,  our  general  teacher,  but  against  him  sealed 
and    sequestered;    every    woman    sitting    in    darkness, 

15  without  love  to  shelter  her  head,  or  hope  to  illumine  her 
solitude,  because  the  heaven-born  instincts  kindling  in 
her  nature  germs  of  holy  affections,  which  God  implanted 
in  her  womanly  bosom,  having  been  stifled  by  social 
necessities,  now  burn  sullenly  to  waste,  like  sepulchral 

20  lamps  amongst  the  ancients;  every  nun  defrauded  of  her 
unreturning  May-time  by  wicked  kinsman,  whom  God 
will  judge;  every  captive  in  every  dungeon;  all  that  are 
betrayed,  and  all  that  are  rejected;  outcasts  by  tradition- 
ary law,  and  children  of  hereditary  disgrace — all  these 

25  walk  with  Our  Lady  of  Sighs.  She  also  carries  a  key; 
but  she  needs  it  little.  For  her  kingdom  is  chiefly 
amongst  the  tents  of  Shem,  and  the  houseless  vagrant 
of  every  clime.  Yet  in  the  very  highest  ranks  of  man 
she  finds  chapels  of  her  own;  and  even  in  glorious  England 

30  there  are  some  that,  to  the  world,  carry  their  heads  as 
proudly  as  the  reindeer,  yet  who  secretly  have  received 
her  mark  upon  their  foreheads. 

But   the   third   Sister,   who   is  also   the  youngest — •! 
Hush!  whisper  whilst  we  talk  of  her!     Her  kingdom  is 


Levana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow       19I 

not  large,  or  else  no  flesh  should  live;  but  within  that 
kingdom  all  power  is  hers.  Her  head,  turreted  like  that 
of  Cybele,  rises  almost  beyond  the  reach  of  sight.  She 
droops  not;  and  her  eyes,  rising  so  high,  might  be  hidden 
by  distance.  But,  being  what  they  are,  they  cannot  be  5 
hidden;  through  the  treble  veil  of  crape  which  she  wears, 
the  fierce  Hght  of  a  blazing  misery,  that  rests  not  for 
matins  or  for  vespers,  for  noon  of  day  or  noon  of  night, 
for  ebbing  or  for  flowing  tide,  may  be  read  from  the  very 
ground.  She  is  the  defier  of  God.  She  also  is  the  mother  10 
of  lunacies,  and  the  suggestress  of  suicides.  Deep  lie 
the  roots  of  her  power,  but  narrow  is  the  nation  that  she 
rules.  For  she  can  approach  only  those  in  whom  a  pro- 
found nature  has  been  upheaved  by  central  convulsions; 
in  whom  the  heart  trembles  and  the  brain  rocks  under  15 
conspiracies  of  tempest  from  without  and  tempest  from 
within.  Madonna  moves  with  uncertain  steps,  fast  or 
slow,  but  still  with  tragic  grace.  Our  Lady  of  Sighs 
creeps  timidly  and  stealthily.  But  this  youngest  Sister 
moves  with  incalculable  motions,  bounding,  and  with  20 
tiger's  leaps.  She  carries  no  key;  for,  though  coming 
rarely  amongst  men,  she  storms  all  doors  at  which  she  is 
permitted  to  enter  at  all.  And  her  name  is  Mater 
Tenebraruni,  Our  Lady  of  Darkness. 

These  were  the  Seninai  Theai,  or  Sublime  Goddesses,  25 
these  were  the  Eitmenides,  or  Gracious  Ladies  (so  called 
by  antiquity  in  shuddering  propitiation),  of  my  Oxford 
dreams.  Madonna  spoke.  She  spoke  by  her  mysterious 
hand.  Touching  my  head,  she  beckoned  to  Our  Lady 
of  Sighs;  and  what  she  spoke,  translated  out  of  the  signs  30 
which  (except  in  dreams)  no  man  reads,  was  this: — 

"Lo!  here  is  he  whom  in  childhood  I  dedicated  to  my 
altars.  This  is  he  that  once  I  made  my  darling.  Him  I 
led  astray,  him  I  beguiled,  and  from  heaven  I  stole  away 


192  Thomas  DcQuincey 

his  young  heart  to  mine.  Through  me  did  he  become 
idolatrous;  and  through  me  it  was,  by  languishing  desires, 
that  he  worshipped  the  worm  and  prayed  to  the  wormy 
grave.  Holy  was  the  grave  to  him;  lovely  was  its  dark- 
5  ness;  saintly  its  corruption.  Him,  this  young  idolator, 
I  have  seasoned  for  thee,  dear  gentle  Sister  of  Sighs  I 
Do  thou  take  him  now  to  thy  heart,  and  season  him  for 
our  dreadful  Sister.  And  thou  "—turning  to  the 
Mater    Tenebrartim,     she     said — "wicked    Sister,    that 

10  temptest  and  hatest,  do  thou  take  him  from  her.  See 
that  thy  scepter  lie  heavy  on  his  head.  Suffer  not  woman 
and  her  tenderness  to  sit  near  him  in  his  darkness. 
Banish  the  frailties  of  hope;  wither  the  relenting  of  love; 
scorch  the  fountains  of  tears;  curse  him  as  only  thou 

15  canst  curse.  So  shall  he  be  accomplished  in  the  furnace; 
so  shall  he  see  the  things  that  ought  not  to  be  seen, 
sights  that  are  abominable,  and  secrets  that  are  unutter- 
able. So  shaU  he  read  elder  truths,  sad  truth,  grand 
truths,  fearful  truths.     So  shall  he  rise  again  before  he 

20  dies.  And  so  shall  our  commission  be  accomplished 
which  from  God  we  had — to  plague  his  heart  until  we 
had  unfolded  the  capacities  of  his  spirit." 


WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY 

NIL  NISI  BONUM 

Almost  the  last  words  which  Sir  Walter  spoke  to  Lock- 
hart,  his  biographer,  were,  "Be  a  good  man,  my  dear!" 
and  with  the  last  flicker  of  breath  on  his  dying  lips,  he 
sighed  a  farewell  to  his  family,  and  passed  away  blessing 
them.  5 

Two  men,  famous,  admired,  beloved,  have  just  left  us, 
the  Goldsmith  and  the  Gibbon  of  our  time.  Ere  a  few 
weeks  are  over,  many  a  critic's  pen  will  be  at  work, 
reviewing  their  lives,  and  passing  judgment  on  their 
works.  This  is  no  review,  or  history,  or  criticism:  only  lo 
a  word  in  testimony  of  respect  and  regard  from  a  man  of 
letters,  who  owes  to  his  own  professional  labor  the  honor 
of  becoming  acquainted  with  these  two  eminent  literary 
men.  One  was  the  first  ambassador  whom  the  New 
World  of  Letters  sent  to  the  Old.  He  was  born  almost  15 
with  the  republic;  the  pater  patrice  had  laid  his  hand  on 
the  child's  head.  He  bore  Washington's  name:  he  came 
amongst  us  bringing  the  kindest  sympathy,  the  most 
artless,  smiling  goodwill.  His  new  country  (which  some 
people  here  might  be  disposed  to  regard  rather  super-  20 
ciliously)  could  send  us,  as  he  showed  in  his  own  person, 
a  gentleman,  who,  though  himself  born  in  no  very  high 
sphere,  was  most  finished,  polished,  easy,  witty,  quiet; 
and,  socially,  the  equal  of  the  most  refined  Europeans. 
If  Irving's  welcome  in  England  was  a  kind  one,  was  it  25 
not  also  gratefully  remembered?  If  he  ate  our  salt,  did 
he  not  pay  us  with  a  thankful  heart?     Who  can  calculate 

103 


194  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

the  amount  of  friendliness  and  good  feeling  for  our 
country  which  this  writer's  generous  and  untiring  regard 
for  us  disseminated  in  his  own?  His  books  are  read  by 
millions  of  his  countrymen,  whom  he  has  taught  to  love 
5  England,  and  why  to  love  her?  It  would  have  been  easy 
to  speak  otherwise  than  he  did:  to  inflame  national 
rancors,  which,  at  the  time  when  he  first  became  known 
as  a  public  writer,  war  had  just  renewed:  to  cry  down 
the  old  civilization  at  the  expense  of  the  new:  to  point 

lo  out  our  faults,  arrogance,  shortcomings,  and  give  the 
republic  to  infer  how  much  she  was  the  parent  state's 
superior.  There  are  writers  enough  in  the  United 
States,  honest  and  otherwise,  who  preach  that  kind  of 
doctrine.     But  the  good  Irving,  the  peaceful,  the  friendly, 

IS  had  no  place  for  bitterness  in  his  heart,  and  no  scheme 
but  kindness.  Received  in  England  with  extraordinary 
tenderness  and  friendship  (Scott,  Southey,  Byron,  a 
hundred  others  have  borne  witness  to  their  liking  for 
him),  he  was  a  messenger  of  goodwill  and  peace  between 

20  his  country  and  ours.  "See,  friends!"  he  seems  to  say, 
"these  English  are  not  so  wicked,  rapacious,  callous, 
proud,  as  you  have  been  taught  to  believe  them.  I  went 
amongst  them  a  humble  man;  won  my  way  by  my  pen; 
and,  when  known,  found  every  hand  held  out  to  me  with 

25  kindUness  and  welcome.  Scott  is  a  great  m.an,  you 
acknowledge.  Did  not  Scott's  King  of  England  give  a 
gold  medal  to  him,  and  another  to  me,  your  countryman, 
and  a  stranger?" 

Tradition  in  the  United  States  still  fondly  retains  the 

30  history  of  the  feasts  and  rejoicings  which  awaited  Irving 
on  his  return  to  his  native  country  from  Europe.  He  had 
a  national  welcome;  he  stammered  in  his  speeches,  hid 
himself  in  confusion,  and  the  people  loved  him  all  the 
better.     He     had     worthily    represented     America     in 


Nil  Nisi  Bonum  195 

Europe.  In  that  young  community  a  man  who  brings 
home  with  him  abundant  European  testimonials  is  still 
treated  with  respect  (I  have  found  American  writers,  of 
wide-world  reputation,  strangely  solicitous  about  the 
opinions  of  quite  obscure  British  critics,  and  elated  or  5 
depressed  by  their  judgments);  and  Irving  went 
home  medaled  by  the  King,  diplomatized  by  the  Uni- 
versity, crowned  and  honored  and  admired.  He  had 
not  in  any  way  intrigued  for  his  honors,  he  had  fairly 
won  them;  and,  in  Irving's  instance,  as  in  others,  the  old  10 
country  was  glad  and  eager  to  pay  them. 

In  America  the  love  and  regard  for  Irving  was  a 
national  sentiment.  Party  wars  are  perpetually  raging 
there,  and  are  carried  on  by  the  press  with  a  rancor  and 
fierceness  against  individuals  which  exceed  British,  15 
almost  Irish,  virulence.  It  seemed  to  me,  during  a 
year's  travel  in  the  country,  as  if  no  one  ever  aimed  a 
blow  at  Irving.  All  men  held  their  hand  from  that 
harmless,  friendly  peacemaker.  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  see  him  at  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  20 
Washington,^  and  remarked  how  in  every  place  he  was 
honored  and  welcome.  Every  large  city  has  its  "Irving 
House."  The  country  takes  pride  in  the  fame  of  its 
men  of  letters.  The  gate  of  his  own  charming  little 
domain  on  the  beautiful  Hudson  River  was  for  ever  25 
swinging  before  visitors  who  came  to  him.  He  shut  out 
no  one.^    I  had  seen  many  pictures  of  his  house,  and 

^  At  Washington,  Mr.  Irving  came  to  a  lecture  given  by  the 
writer,  which  Mt.  Filmore  and  General  Pierce,  the  President  and 
President  Elect,  were  also  kind  enough  to  attend  together.  "Two 
Kings  of  Brentford  smelling  at  one  rose,"  says  Irving,  looking  up 
•with  his  good-humored  smile. 

2  Mr.  Irving  described  to  me,  with  that  humor  and  good  humor 
which  he  always  kept,  how,  amongst  other  visitors,  a  member  of 
the  British  press  who  had  carried  his  distinguished  pen  to  America 
(where  he  employed  it  in  vilifying  his  own  country)  came  to  Sunny«= 


196  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

read  descriptions  of  it,  in  both  of  which  it  was  treated 
with  a  not  unusual  American  exaggeration.  It  was  but  a 
pretty  little  cabin  of  a  place;  the  gentleman  of  the  press 
who  took  notes  of  the  place,  whilst  his  kind  old  host  was 
5  sleeping,  might  have  visited  the  whole  house  in  a  couple 
of  minutes. 

And  how  came  it  that  this  house  w^as  so  small,  when 
Mr.  Irving's  books  were  sold  by  hundreds  of  thousands, 
nay,  millions,  when  his  profits  were  known  to  be  large, 

10  and  the  habits  of  life  of  the  good  old  bachelor  were 
notoriously  modest  and  simple?  He  had  loved  once  in 
his  life.  The  lady  he  loved  died;  and  he,  whom  all  the 
world  loved,  never  sought  to  replace  her.  I  can't  say 
how  much  the  thought  of  that  fidelity  has  touched  me. 

1 5  Does  not  the  very  cheerfulness  of  his  after-life  add  to  the 
pathos  of  that  untold  story?  To  grieve  always  was  not 
in  his  nature;  or,  when  he  had  his  sorrow,  to  bring  all  the 
world  in  to  condole  with  him  and  bemoan  it.  Deep  and 
quiet  he  lays  the  love  of  his  heart,  and  buries  it;  and 

20  grass  and  flowers  grow  over  the  scarred  ground  in  due 
time. 

Irving  had  such  a  small  house  and  such  narrow  rooms, 
because  there  was  a  great  number  of  people  to  occupy 
them.     He   could   only   afford   to   keep   one   old   horse 

25  (which,  lazy  and  aged  as  it  was,  managed  once  or  twice 
to  run  away  with  that  careless  old  horseman).  He  could 
only  afford  to  give  plain  sherry  to  that  amiable  British 
paragraph-monger  from  New  York,  who  saw  the  patriarch 
asleep  over  his  modest,  blameless  cup,  and  fetched  the 

side,  introduced  himself  to  Trvin^,  partook  of  his  wine  and  lunch- 
eon, and  in  two  days  described  Mr.  Irvinj;,  his  house,  his  nieces,- 
his  meal,  and  his  manner  of  dozing  afterward,  in  a  New  York  paper. 
On  another  occasion,  Irving  said,  laughing,  "Two  persons  came  to 
me,  and  one  held  me  in  conversation  whilst  the  other  miscreant 
took  my  portrait!" 


Nil  Nisi  Bonum  197 

public  into  his  private  chamber  to  look  at  him.  Irving 
could  only  live  very  modestly,  because  the  wifeless, 
childless  man  had  a  number  of  children  to  whom  he  was 
as  a  father.  He  had  as  many  as  nine  nieces,  I  am  told 
—I  saw  two  of  these  ladies  at  his  house — 'With  all  of  5 
whom  the  dear  old  man  had  shared  the  product  of  his 
labor  and  genius. 

''Be  a  good  man,  my  dear."  One  can't  but  think  of 
these  last  words  of  the  veteran  Chief  of  Letters,  who  had 
tasted  and  tested  the  value  of  wordly  success,  admiration,  10 
prosperity.  Was  Irving  not  good,  and,  of  his  works,  was 
not  his  life  the  best  part?  In  his  family,  gentle,  generous, 
good-humored,  affectionate,  self-denying:  in  society,  a 
delightful  example  of  complete  gentlemanhood;  quite 
unspoiled  by  prosperity;  never  obsequious  to  the  great  15 
(or,  worse  still,  to  the  base  and  mean,  as  some  public 
men  are  forced  to  be  in  his  and  other  countries);  eager 
to  acknowledge  every  contemporary's  merit;  always  kind 
and  affable  to  the  young  members  of  his  calling:  in  his 
professional  bargains  and  mercantile  dealings  delicately  20 
honest  and  grateful;  one  of  the  most  charming  masters  of 
our  lighter  language;  the  constant  friend  to  us  and  our 
nation;  to  men  of  letters  doubly  dear,  not  for  his  wit  and 
genius  merely,  but  as  an  exemplar  of  goodness,  probity, 
and  pure  life: — I  don't  know  what  sort  of  testimonial  25 
will  be  raised  to  him  in  his  own  country,  where  generous 
and  enthusiastic  acknowledgment  of  American  merit  is 
never  wanting:  but  Irving  was  in  our  service  as  well  as 
theirs;  and  as  they  have  placed  a  stone  at  Greenwich 
yonder  in  memory  of  that  gallant  young  Bellot,  who  30 
shared  the  perils  and  fate  of  some  of  our  Arctic  seamen, 
I  would  like  to  hear  of  some  memorial  raised  by  English 
writers  and  friends  of  letters  in  affectionate  remembrance 
of  the  dear  and  good  Washington  Irving. 


198  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

As  for  the  other  writer,  whose  departure  many  friends, 
some  few  most  dearly-loved  relatives,  and  multitudes  of 
admiring  readers  deplore,  our  republic  has  already 
decreed  his  statue,  and  he  must  have  known  that  he  had 
5  earned  this  posthumous  honor.  He  is  not  a  poet  and 
man  of  letters  merely,  but  citizen,  statesmen,  a  great 
British  worthy.  Almost  from  the  first  moment  when 
he  appears,  amongst  boys,  amongst  college  students, 
amongst  men,  he  is  marked,  and  takes  rank  as  a  great 

10  Englishman.  All  sorts  of  successes  are  easy  to  him:  as 
a  lad  he  goes  down  into  the  arena  with  others,  and  wins  all 
the  prizes  to  which  he  has  a  mind.  A  place  in  the 
senate  is  straightway  offered  to  the  young  man.  He 
takes  his  seat  there;  he  speaks,  when  so  minded,  without 

[5  party  anger  or  intrigue,  but  not  without  party  faith  and 
a  sort  of  heroic  enthusiasm  for  his  cause.  Still  he  is 
poet  and  philosopher  even  more  than  orator.  That  he 
may  have  leisure  and  means  to  pursue  his  darling 
studies,  he  absents  himself  for  a  while,  and  accepts  a 

2o  richly  remunerative  post  in  the  East.  As  learned  a  man 
may  live  in  a  cottage  or  a  college  common-room;  but  it 
always  seemed  to  me  that  ample  means  and  recognized 
rank  were  Macaulay's  as  of  right.  Years  ago  there  was 
a  wretched  outcry  raised  because  ISIr.  Macaulay  dated  a 

25  letter  from  Windsor  Castle,  where  he  was  staying. 
Immortal  gods!  Was  this  man  not  a  fit  guest  for  any 
palace  in  the  world?  or  a  fit  companion  for  any  man  or 
woman  in  it?  I  dare  say,  after  Austerlitz,  the  old  K.  K. 
court   officials   and   footmen   sneered   at   Napoleon   for 

30  dating  from  Schonbrunn.  But  that  miserable  ''Windsor 
Castle"  outcry  is  an  echo  out  of  fast-retreating  old-world 
remembrances.  The  place  of  such  a  natural  chief  was 
amongst  the  first  of  the  land;  and  that  country  is  best, 
according  to  our  British  notion  at  least,  where  the  man 


Nil  Nisi  Bonum  199 

of   eminence   has    the    best    chance    of   investing    his 
genius  and  intellect. 

If  a  company  of  giants  were  got  together,  very  likely 
one  or  two  of  the  mere  six-feet-six  people  might  be  angry 
at  the  incontestable  superiority  of  the  very  tallest  of  5 
the  party:  and  so  I  have  heard  some  London  wits,  rather 
peevish  at  Macaulay's  superiority,  complain  that  he 
occupied  too  much  of  the  talk,  and  so  forth.  Now  that 
wonderful  tongue  is  to  speak  no  more,  will  not  many  a 
man  grieve  that  he  no  longer  has  the  chance  to  listen?  10 
To  remember  the  talk  is  to  wonder:  to  think  not  only  of 
the  treasures  he  had  in  his  memory,  but  of  the  trifles  he 
had  stored  there,  and  could  produce  with  equal  readiness. 
Almost  on  the  last  day  I  had  the  fortune  to  see  him,  a 
conversation  happened  suddenly  to  spring  up  about  senior  15 
wranglers,  and  what  they  had  done  in  after-life.  To 
the  almost  terror  of  the  persons  present,  Macaulay  began 
with  the  senior  wrangler  of  1 801-2-3-4,  and  so  on, 
giving  the  name  of  each,  and  relating  his  subsequent 
career  and  rise.  Every  man  who  has  known  him  has  20 
his  story  regarding  that  astonishing  memory.  It  may  be 
that  he  was  not  ill  pleased  that  you  should  recognize 
it;  but  to  those  prodigious  intellectual  feats,  which  were 
so  easy  to  him,  who' would  grudge  his  tribute  of  homage? 
His  talk  was,  in  a  word,  admirable,  and  we  admired  it.  25 

Of  the  notices  which  have  appeared  regarding  Lord 
Macaulay,  up  to  the  day  when  the  present  lines  are 
written  (the  9th  of  January),  the  reader  should  not  deny 
himself  the  pleasure  of  looking  especially  at  two.  It  is  a 
good  sign  of  the  times  when  such  articles  as  these  (I  30 
mean  the  articles  in  the  Times  and  Saturday  Review) 
appear  in  our  public  prints  about  our  public  men.  They 
educate  us,  as  it  were,  to  admire  rightly.  An  uninstructed 
person  in  a  museum  or  at  a  concert  may  pass  by  without 


200  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

recognizing  a  picture  or  a  passage  of  music,  which  the 
connoisseur  by  his  side  may  show  him  is  a  masterpiece 
of  harmony,  or  a  wonder  of  artistic  skill.  After  read- 
ing these  papers  you  like  and  respect  more  the  person 
5  you  have  admired  so  much  already.  And  so  with  regard 
to  Macaulay's  style  there  may  be  faults  of  course — 
what  critic  can't  point  them  out?  But  for  the  nonce 
we  are  not  talking  about  faults:  we  want  to  say  nil  nisi 
bonum.     Well — take  at  hazard  any  three  pages  of  the 

lo  Essays  or  History; — and,  glimmering  below  the  stream 
of  the  narrative,  as  it  were,  you,  an  average  reader,  see 
one,  two,  three,  a  half-score  of  allusions  to  other  historic 
facts,  characters,  literature,  poetry,  with  which  you  are 
acquainted.     Why    is    this    epithet    used?     Whence    is 

15  that  simile  drawn?  How  does  he  manage,  in  two  or 
three  words  to  paint  an  individual,  or  to  indicate  a  land- 
scape? Your  neighbor,  who  has  his  reading,  and  his 
little  stock  of  literature  stowed  away  in  his  mind,  shall 
detect  more  points,  allusions,  happy  touches,  indicating 

20  not  only  the  prodigious  memory  and  vast  learning  of 
this  master,  but  the  wonderful  industry,  the  honest, 
humble  previous  toil  of  this  great  scholar.  He  reads 
twenty  books  to  WTite  a  sentence:  he  travels  a  hundred 
miles  to  make  a  line  of  description. 

25  Many  Londoners — not  all — have  seen  the  British 
Museum  Library.  I  speak  a  coeur  ouvert,  and  pray  the 
kindly  reader  to  bear  with  me.  I  have  seen  all  sorts  of 
domes  of  Peters  and  Pauls,  Sophia,  Pantheon, — what 
not? — and  have  been  struck  by  none  of  them  so  much  as 

30  by  that  catholic  dome  in  Bloomsbury,  under  which  our 
million  volumes  are  housed.  What  peace,  what  love, 
what  truth,  what  beauty,  what  happiness  for  all,  what 
generous  kindness  for  you  and  me,  are  here  spread  out! 
It  seems  to  me  one  cannot  sit  down  in  that  place  without 


Nil  Nisi  Bonum  201 

a  heart  full  of  grateful  reverence.  I  own  to  have  said 
my  grace  at  the  table,  and  to  have  thanked  heaven  for 
this  my  English  birthright,  freely  to  partake  of  these 
bountiful  books,  and  to  speak  the  truth  I  find  there. 
Under  the  dome  which  held  Macaulay's  brain,  and  from  5 
which  his  solemn  eyes  looked  out  en  the  world  but  a 
fortnight  since,  what  a  vast,  brilliant,  and  wonderful 
store  of  learning  was  ranged!  what  strange  lore  would 
he  not  fetch  for  you  at  your  bidding!  A  volume  of  law, 
or  history,  a  book  of  poetry  familiar  or  forgotten  (except  10 
by  himself  who  forgot  nothing),  a  novel  ever  so  old,  and 
he  had  it  at  hand.  I  spoke  to  him  once  about  Clarissa. 
"Not  read  Clarissar'  he  cried  out.  "If  you  have  once 
thoroughly  entered  on  Clarissa  and  are  infected  by  it, 
you  can't  leave  it.  When  I  was  in  India  I  passed  one  15 
hot  season  at  the  hills,  and  there  were  the  Governor- 
General,  and  the  Secretary  of  Government,  and  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  and  their  wives.  I  had  Clarissa 
with  me:  and,  as  soon  as  they  began  to  read,  the  whole 
station  was  in  a  passion  of  excitement  about  Miss  20 
Harlowe  and  her  misfortunes,  and  her  scoundrelly 
Lovelace!  The  Governor's  wife  seized  the  book,  and  the 
Secretary  waited  for  it,  and  the  Chief  Justice  could  not 
read  it  for  tears!"  He  acted  the  whole  scene:  he  paced 
up  and  down  the  Athenaeum  library:  I  daresay  he  could  25 
have  spoken  pages  of  the  book — of  that  book,  and  of  what 
countless  piles  of  others! 

In  this  little  paper  let  us  keep  to  the  text  of  nil  nisi 
honum.  One  paper  I  have  read  regarding  Lord  Macaulay 
says  "he  had  no  heart."  Why,  a  man's  books  may  not  30 
always  speak  the  truth,  but  they  speak  his  mind  in  spite 
of  himself;  and  it  seems  to  me  this  man's  heart  is  beating 
through  every  page  he  penned.  He  is  always  in  a 
storm  of  revolt  and  indignation  against  wrong,  craft, 


202  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

tyranny.  How  he  cheers  heroic  resistance;  how  he  backs 
and  applauds  freedom  struggling  for  its  own;  how  he 
hates  scoundrels,  ever  so  victorious  and  successful;  how 
he  recognizes  genius,  though  selfish  villains  possess  it! 
5  The  critic  who  says  Macaulay  had  no  heart  might  say 
that  Johnson  had  none;  and  two  men  more  generous, 
and  more  loving,  and  more  hating,  and  more  partial, 
and  more  noble,  do  not  live  in  our  history.  Those 
who  knew  Lord  Macaulay  knew  how  admirably  tender 

3o  and  generous,^  and  affectionate  he  was.  It  was  not  his 
business  to  bring  his  family  before  the  theater  footlights, 
and  call  for  bouquets  from  the  gallery  as  he  wept  over 
them. 

If  any  young  man  of  letters  reads  this  little  sermon — ■ 

15  and  to  him,  indeed,  it  is  addressed — I  would  say  to  him, 
"Bear  Scott's  words  in  your  mind,  and  'be  good,  my 
dear.^ "  Here  are  two  literary  men  gone  to  their  account, 
and,  laus  Deo,  as  far  as  we  know,  it  is  fair,  and  open,  and 
clean.     Here  is  no  need  of  apologies  for  shortcomings,  or 

20  explanations  of  vices  which  would  have  been  virtues  but 
for  unavoidable  etc.  Here  are  two  examples  of  men 
most  differently  gifted:  each  pursuing  his  calling;  each 
speaking  his  truth  as  God  bade  him;  each  honest  in  his 
life;  just  and  irreproachable  in  his  dealings;  dear  to  his 

25  friends;  honored  by  his  country;  beloved  at  his  fireside. 
It  has  been  the  fortimate  lot  of  both  to  give  incalculable 
happiness  and  delight  to  the  world,  which  thanks  them 
in  return  with  an  immense  kindliness,  respect,  affection. 
It  may  not  be  our  chance,  brother  scribe,  to  be  endowed 

30  with  such  merit,   or  rewarded  with  such  fame.     But 

the  rewards  of  these  men  are  rewards  paid  to  our  service. 

^  Since  the  above  was  written,  I  have  been  informed  that  it  has 

been  found,  on  examining  Lord  IMacaulay's  j)apcrs,  that  he  was  in 

the  habit  of  giving  away  more  than  a  fourth  pa-rt  of  his  annual 


De  Finibus  203 

We  may  not  win  the  baton  or  epaulettes;  but  God  give  us 
strength  to  guard  the  honor  of  the  flag! 

DE  FINIBUS 

When  Swift  was  in  love  with  Stella,  and  dispatching 
her  a  letter  from  London  thrice  a  month  by  the  Irish 
packet,  you  may  remember  how  he  would  begin  letter    5 
No.  XXIII.,  we  will  say,  on  the  very  day  when  xxii.  had 
been  sent  away,  stealing  out  of  the  coffee-house  or  the 
assembly  so  as  to  be  able  to  prattle  with  his  dear; 
"never  letting  go  her  kind  hand,  as  it  were,"  as  some 
commentator  or  other  has  said  in  speaking  of  the  Dean  10 
and  his  amour.     When  Mr.  Johnson,  walking  to  Dod- 
sley's,  and  touching  the  posts  in  Pall  Mall  as  he  walked, 
forgot  to  pat  the  head  of  one  of  them,  he  went  back  and 
imposed  his  hands  on  it — impelled  I  know  not  by  what 
superstition.     I  have  this  I  hope  not  dangerous  mania  15 
too.     As  soon  as  a  piece  of  work  is  out  of  hand,  and  before 
going  to  sleep,  I  like  to  begin  another:  it  may  be  to  write 
only  half-a-dozen  lines:  but  that  is  something  toward 
Number    the    Next.     The   printer's   boy   has   not   yet 
reached    Green   Arbour    Court   with   the  copy.     Those  20 
people  who  were  alive  half  an  hour  since,  Pendennis, 
Clive  Newcome,  and  (what  do  you  call  him?  what  was 
the  name  of  the  last  hero?     I  remember  now!)     Philip 
Firmin,  have  hardly  drunk  their  glass  of  wine,  and  the 
mammas  have  only  this  minute  got  the  children's  cloaks  25 
on,  and  have  been  bowed  out  of  my  premises — and  here 
I  come  back  to  the  study  again:  tavien  usque  recurro. 
How  lonely  it  looks  now  all  these  people  are  gone!     My 
dear  good  friends,  some  folks  are  utterly  tired  of  you,  and 
say,  "What  a  poverty  of  friends  the  man  has!     He  is  30 
always  asking  us  to  meet  those  Pendennises,  Newcomes, 
and  so  forth.     Why  does  he  not  introduce  us  to  some  new 


204  William  Alakepeace  Thackeray 

characters?  Why  is  he  not  thrilling  like  Twostars, 
learned  and  profound  like  Threestars,  exquisitely 
humorous  and  human  like  Fourstars?  Why,  finally,  is 
he  not  somebody  else?"  My  good  people,  it  is  not 
5  only  impossible  to  please  you  all,  but  it  is  absurd  to  try. 
The  dish  which  one  man  devours,  another  dislikes.  Is 
the  dinner  of  to-day  not  to  your  taste?  Let  us  hope 
to-morrow's  entertainment  will  be  more  agreeable.  *  * 
I  resume  my  original  subject.     What  an  odd,  pleasant, 

lo  humorous,  melancholy  feeling  it  is  to  sit  in  the  study, 
alone  and  quiet,  now  all  these  people  are  gone  who  have 
been  boarding  and  lodging  wdth  me  for  twenty  months! 
They  have  interrupted  my  rest:  they  have  plagued  me  at 
all  sorts  of  minutes:  they  have  thrust  themselves  upon 

15  me  when  I  was  ill,  or  wished  to  be  idle,  and  I  have  growled 
out  a  " Be  hanged  to  you,  can't  you  leave  me  alone  now?" 
Once  or  twice  they  have  prevented  my  going  out  to  dinner. 
Many  and  many  a  time  they  have  prevented  my  coming 
home,  because  I  knew  they  were  there  waiting  in  the 

20  study,  and  a  plague  take  them!  and  I  have  left  home  and 
family,  and  gone  to  dine  at  the  Club,  and  told  nobody 
where  I  went.  They  have  bored  me,  those  people.  They 
have  plagued  me  at  all  sorts  of  uncomfortable  hours. 
They  have  made  such  a  disturbance  in  my  mind  and 

25  house,  that  sometimes  I  have  hardly  known  what  was 
going  on  in  my  family,  and  scarcely  have  heard  what  my 
neighbor  said  to  me.  They  are  gone  at  last;  and  you 
would  expect  me  to  be  at  ease?  Far  from  it.  I  should 
almost  be  glad  if  Woolcomb  would  walk  in  and  talk  to 

some;  or  Twysden  reappear,  take  his  place  in  that  chair 
opposite  me,  and  begin  one  of  his  tremendous  stories. 

Madmen,  you  know,  see  visions,  hold  conversations 
with,  even  draw  the  likeness  of,  people  invisible  to  you 
and  me.     Is  this  making  of  people  out  of  fancy  madness? 


De  Finibus  205 

and  are  novel-writers  at  all  entitled  to  strait- waistcoats? 
I  often  forget  people's  names  in  life;  and  in  my  own  sto- 
ries contritely  own  that  I  make  dreadful  blunders  regard- 
ing them;  but  I  declare,  my  dear  sir,  with  respect  to  the 
personages  introduced  into  your  humble  servant's  fables,    5 
I  know  the  people  utterly — I  know  the  sound  of  their 
voices.     A  gentleman  came  in  to  see  me  the  other  day, 
who  was  so  like  the  picture  of  Philip  Firmin  in  Mr. 
Walker's  charming  drawings  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine, 
that  he  was  quite  a  curiosity  to  me.     The  same  eyes,  10 
beard,  shoulders,  just  as  you  have  seen  them  from  month 
to  month.     Well,  he  is  not  like  the  Philip  Firmin  in  my 
mind.     Asleep,  asleep  in  the  grave,  lies  the  bold,  the 
generous,  the  reckless,  the  tender-hearted  creature  whom 
I  have  made  to  pass  through  those  adventures  which  have  15 
just  been  brought  to  an  end.     It  is  years  since  I  heard 
the  laughter  ringing,  or  saw  the  bright  blue  eyes.     When 
I  knew  him  both  were  young.     I  become  young  as  I 
think  of  him.     And  this  morning  he  was  alive  again  in 
this  room,  ready  to  laugh,  to  fight,  to  weep.     As  I  write,  20 
do  you  know,  it  is  the  grey  of  evening;  the  house  is  quiet; 
everybody  is  out;  the  room  is  getting  a  little  dark,  and  . 
I  look  rather  wistfully  up  from  the  paper  with  perhaps 

ever  so  little  fancy  that  HE  MAY  COME  IN. 

No?  No  movement.  No  grey  shade,  growing  more  25 
palpable,  out  of  which  at  last  look  the  well-known  eyes. 
No,  the  printer  came  and  took  him  away  with  the  last 
page  of  the  proofs.  And  with  the  printer's  boy  did  the 
whole  cortege  of  ghosts  flit  away,  invisible?  Ha!  stay! 
what  is  this?  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace!  The  door  30 
opens,  and  a  dark  form — enters,  bearing  a  black — a 
black  suit  of  clothes.  It  is  John.  He  says  it  is  time  to 
dress  for  dinner. 

*ii  ^  5t*  -i^  H'  ^ 


2o6  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

Every  man  who  has  had  his  German  tutor,  and  has  been 
coached  through  the  famous  Faust  of  Goethe  (thou  wert 
my  instructor,  good  old  Weissenborn,  and  these  eyes 
beheld  the  great  master  himself  in  dear  little  Weimar 
5  town!)  has  read  those  charming  verses  which  are  pre- 
fixed to  the  drama,  in  which  the  poet  reverts  to  the  time 
when  his  work  was  first  composed,  and  recalls  the  friends 
now  departed,  who  once  listened  to  his  song.  The  dear 
shadows  rise  up  around  him,  he  says;  he  lives  in  the  past 

lo  again.  It  is  to-day  which  appears  vague  and  visionary. 
We  humbler  writers  cannot  create  Fausts,  or  raise  up 
monumental  works  that  shall  endure  for  all  ages;  but 
our  books  are  diaries,  in  which  our  own  feelings  must  of 
necessity  be  set  down.    As  we  look  to  the  page  written 

15  last  month,  or  ten  years  ago,  we  remember  the  day  and 
its  events:  the  child  ill,  mayhap,  in  the  adjoining  room, 
and  the  doubts  and  fears  which  racked  the  brain  as  it 
still  pursued  its  work;  the  dear  old  friend  who  read  the 
commencement  of  the  tale,  and  whose  gentle  hand  shall 

20  be  laid  in  ours  no  more.  I  own  for  my  part  that,  in 
reading  pages  which  this  hand  penned  formerly,  I  often 
lose  sight  of  the  text  under  my  eyes.  It  is  not  the  w^ords 
I  see ;  but  that  past  day ;  that  bygone  page  of  life's  history ; 
that  tragedy,  comedy  it  may  be,  which  our  little  home 

25  company  was  enacting ;_  that  merry-making  which  we 
shared;  that  funeral  which  we  followed;  that  bitter, 
bitter  grief  which  we  buried. 

And,  such  being  the  state  of  my  mind,  I  pray  gentle 
readers  to  deal  kindly  with  their  humble  servant's  mani- 

30  fold  shortcomings,  blunders,  and  slips  of  memory.  As 
sure  as  I  read  a  page  of  my  own  composition,  I  find  a 
fault  or  two,  half-a-dozen.  Jones  is  called  Brown. 
Brown,  who  is  dead,  is  brought  to  life.  Aghast,  and 
months  after  the  number  was  printed,  I  saw  that  I  had 


De  Finibus  207 

called  riiilip  Firmin,  Clive  Newcome.  Now  Clive  New- 
come  is  the  hero  of  another  story  by  the  reader's  most 
obedient  writer.  The  two  men  are  as  different,  in  my 
mind's  eye,  as — as  Lord  Palmerston  and  Mr.  Disraeli 
let  us  say.  But  there  is  that  blunder  at  page  990,  line  5 
76,  volume  84  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  and  it  is  past 
mending;  and  I  wish  in  my  life  I  had  made  no  worse 
blunders  or  errors  than  that  which  is  hereby  acknowledged. 
Another  Finis  written.  Another  mile-stone  passed 
on  this  journey  from  birth  to  the  next  world!  Sure  it  is  10 
a  subject  for  solemn  cogitation.  Shall  we  continue  this 
story-telling  business  and  be  voluble  to  the  end  of  our 
age?  Will  it  not  be  presently  time,  O  prattler,  to  hold 
your  tongue,  and  let  younger  people  speak?  I  have  a 
friend,  a  painter,  who,  like  other  persons  who  shall  be  15 
nameless,  is  growing  old.  He  has  never  painted  with 
such  laborious  finish  as  his  works  now  show.  This 
master  is  still  the  most  humble  and  diligent  of  scholars. 
Of  Art,  his  mistress,  he  is  always  an  eager,  reverent  pupil. 
In  his  calling,  in  yours,  in  mine,  industry  and  humility  20 
will  help  and  comfort  us.  A  word  with  you.  In  a 
pretty  large  experience,  I  have  not  found  the  men  who 
write  books  superior  in  wit  or  learning  to  those  who  don't 
write  at  all.  In  regard  of  mere  information,  non-writers 
must  often  be  superior  to  writers.  You  don't  expect  a  25 
lawyer  in  full  practice  to  be  conversant  with  all  kinds  of 
literature;  he  is  too  busy  with  his  law;  and  so  a  writer  is 
commonly  too  busy  with  his  own  books  to  be  able  to  be- 
stow attention  on  the  works  of  other  people.  After  a 
day's  work  (in  which  I  have  been  depicting,  let  us  say,  30 
the  agonies  of  Louisa  on  parting  with  the  Captain,  or  the 
atrocious  behavior  of  the  wicked  Marquis  to  Lady  Emily) 
I  march  to  the  Club,  proposing  to  improve  my  mind  and 
keep  myself  "posted  up,"  as  the  Americans  phrase  it,  with 


2o8  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

the  literature  of  the  day.  And  what  happens?  Given, 
a  walk  after  luncheon,  a  pleasing  book,  and  a  most  con:;- 
fortable  arm-chair  by  the  fire,  and  you  know  the  rest.  A 
doze  ensues.  Pleasing  book  drops  suddenly,  is  picked 
5  up  once  with  an  air  of  some  confusion,  is  laid  presently 
softly  in  lap:  head  falls  on  comfortable  arm-chair  cushion: 
eyes  close:  soft  nasal  music  is  heard.  Am  I  telling  Club 
secrets?  Of  afternoons,  after  lunch,  I  say,  scores  of  sen- 
sible fogies  have  a  doze.     Perhaps  I  have  fallen  asleep 

lo  over  that  very  book  to  which  "Finis"  has  just  been 
written.  "And  if  the  writer  sleeps,  what  happens  to 
the  readers?"  says  Jones,  coming  down  upon  me  with 
his  lightning  wit.  What?  You  did  sleep  over  it?  And 
a  very  good  thing  too.     These  eyes  have  more  than 

15  once  seen  a  friend  dozing  over  pages  which  this  hand 
has  written.  There  is  a  vignette  somewhere  in  one  of 
my  books  of  a  friend  so  caught  napping  with  Pendeiinis, 
or  the  Newcomes,  in  his  lap;  and  if  a  writer  can  give  you  a 
sweet,  soothing,  harmless  sleep,  has  he  not  done  you  a 

20  kindness?  So  is  the  author  who  excites  and  interests 
you  worthy  of  your  thanks  and  benedictions.  I  am 
troubled  with  fever  and  ague,  that  seizes  me  at  odd  in- 
tervals and  prostrates  me  for  a  day.  There  is  cold  fit, 
for  which,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  hot  brandy-and-water  is 

25  prescribed,  and  this  induces  hot  fit,  and  so  on.  In  one 
or  two  of  these  fits  I  have  read  novels  with  the  most  fear- 
ful contentment  of  mind.  Once,  on  the  Mississippi,  it  was 
my  dearly  beloved  Jacob  Faithful:  once  at  Frankfort  O. 
M.,  the  delightful  Vingt  Ans  Apres  of  Monsieur  Dumas: 

30  once  at  Tunbridge  Wells,  the  thrilling  Woman  in  White: 
and  these  books  gave  me  amusement  from  morning  till 
sunset.  I  remember  those  ague  fits  with  a  great  deal  of 
pleasure  and  gratitude.  Think  of  a  whole  day  in  bed, 
and  a  good  novel  for  a  companion !    No  cares :  no  remorse 


De  Finibus  209 

about  idleness:  no  visitors:  and  the  Woman  in  White  or 
the  ChevaUer  d'Artagnan  to  tell  me  stories  from  dawn 
to  night !  "  Please,  ma'am,  my  master 's  compliments,  and 
can  he  have  the  third  volume?"  (This  message  was  sent 
to  an  astonished  friend  and  neighbor,  who  lent  me,  volume  5 
by  volume,  the  W.  in  W.)  How  do  you  like  your  novels? 
I  like  mine  strong,  "hot  with,"  and  no  mistake:  no  love- 
making:  no  observations  about  society:  little  dialogue, 
except  where  the  characters  are  bullying  each  other: 
plenty  of  fighting:  and  a  villain  in  the  cupboard,  who  is  10 
to  suffer  tortures  just  before  Finis.  I  don't  like  your 
melancholy  Finis.  I  never  read  the  history  of  a  con- 
sumptive heroine  twice.  If  I  might  give  a  short  hint  to 
an  impartial  writer  (as  the  Examiner  used  to  say  in  old 
days),  it  would  be  to  act,  not  a  la  mode  le  pays  de  Pole  15 
(I  think  that  was  the  phraseology),  but  always  to  give 
quarter.  In  the  story  of  Philip,  just  come  to  an  end,  I 
have  the  permission  of  the  author  to  state  that  he  was 
going  to  drown  the  two  villains  of  the  piece — a  certain 

Doctor  F and  a  certain  Mr.  T.  H on  board  the  20 

President,  or  some  other  tragic  ship — but  you  see  I  re- 
lented. I  pictured  to  myself  Firmin's  ghastly  face  amid 
the  crowd  of  shuddering  people  on  that  reeling  deck  in  the 
lonely  ocean,  and  thought,  "Thou  ghastly  lying  wretch, 
thou  shalt  not  be  drowned:  thou  shalt  have  a  fever  only;  25 
a  knowledge  of  thy  danger;  and  a  chance — ever  so  small 
a  chance — of  repentance."  I  wonder  whether  he  did 
repent  when  he  found  himself  in  the  yellow-fever,  in 
Virginia?  The  probability  is,  he  fancied  that  his  son  had 
injured  him  very  much,  and  forgave  him  on  his  death-  30 
bed.  Do  you  imagine  there  is  a  great  deal  of  genuine 
right-down  remorse  in  the  world?  Don't  people  rather 
find  excuses  which  make  their  minds  easy;  endeavor  to 
prove  to  themselves  that  they  have  been  lamentably 


2IO  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

belied  and  misunderstood;  and  try  and  forgive  the  per- 
secutors who  will  present  that  bill  when  it  is  due ;  and  not 
bear  malice  against  the  cruel  ruffian  who  takes  them  to 
the  police-office  for  stealing  the  spoons?  Years  ago  I  had 
S  a  quarrel  with  a  certain  well-known  person  (I  believed 
a  statement  regarding  him  which  his  friends  imparted  to 
me,  and  which  turned  out  to  be  quite  incorrect).  To  his 
dying  day  that  quarrel  was  never  quite  made  up.  I  said 
to  his  brother,  "Why  is  your  brother's  soul  still  dark 

lo  against  me?  It  is  I  who  ought  to  be  angry  and  unfor- 
giving :  for  I  was  in  the  wrong."  In  the  region  which  they 
now  inhabit  (for  Finis  has  been  set  to  the  volumes  of  the 
lives  of  both  here  below),  if  they  take  any  cognizance  of 
our  squabbles,  and  tittle-tattles,  and  gossips  on  earth 

15  here,  I  hope  they  admit  that  my  little  error  was  not  of  a 
nature  unpardonable.  If  you  have  never  committed  a 
worse,  my  good  sir,  surely  the  score  against  you  will  not 
be  heavy.  Ha,  dilectissimifratres!  It  is  in  regard  of  sins 
not  found  out  that  we  may  say  or  sing  (in  an  undertone, 

20  in  a  most  penitent  and  lugubrious  minor  key).  Miserere 
nobis  miseris  peccatoribus. 

Among  the  sins  of  commission  which  novel-writers  not 
seldom  perpetrate,  is  the  sin  of  grandiloquence,  or  tall- 
talking,  against  which,  for  my  part,  I  will  offer  up  a  spe- 

25  cial  libera  me.  This  is  the  sin  of  schoolmasters,  govern- 
esses, critics,  sermoners,  and  instructors  of  young  or  old 
people.  Nay  (for  I  am  making  a  clean  breast,  and 
liberating  my  soul),  perhaps  of  all  the  novel-spinners  now 
extant,   the  present   speaker  is   the   most   addicted  to 

30  preaching.  Does  he  not  stop  perpetually  in  his  story  and 
begin  to  preach  to  you?  When  he  ought  to  be  engaged 
with  business,  is  he  not  forever  taking  the  Muse  by  the 
sleeve,  and  plaguing  her  with  some  of  his  cynical  sermons? 
I  cry  peccavi  loudly  and  heartily.     I  tell  you  I  would  like 


De  Finibus  211 

to  be  able  to  write  a  story  which  should  show  no  egotism 
whatever — in  which  there  should  be  no  reflections,  no 
cynicism,  no  vulgarity  (and  so  forth),  but  an  incident  in 
every  other  page,  a  villain,  a  battle,  a  mystery  in  every 
chapter.  I  should  like  to  be  able  to  feed  a  reader  so  spi-  5 
cily  as  to  leave  him  hungering  and  thirsting  for  more  at 
the  end  of  every  monthly  meal. 

Alexandre  Dumas  describes  himself,  when  inventing 
the  plan  of  a  work,  as  lying  silent  on  his  back  for  two 
whole  days  on  the  deck  of  a  yacht  in  a  Mediterranean  10 
port.  At  the  end  of  the  two  days  he  arose  and  called  for 
dinner.  In  those  two  days  he  had  built  his  plot.  He 
had  moulded  a  mighty  clay,  to  be  cast  presently  in  per- 
ennial brass.  The  chapters,  the  characters,  the  incidents, 
the  combinations  were  all  arranged  in  the  artist's  brain  15 
ere  he  set  a  pen  to  paper.  My  Pegasus  won't  fly,  so  as 
to  let  me  survey  the  field  below  me.  He  has  no  wings,  he 
is  blind  of  one  eye  certainly,  he  is  restive,  stubborn,  slow; 
crops  a  hedge  when  he  ought  to  be  galloping,  or  gallops 
when  he  ought  to  be  quiet.  He  never  will  show  off  20 
when  I  want  him.  Sometimes  he  goes  at  a  pace  which 
surprises  me.  Sometimes,  when  I  most  wish  him  to  make 
the  running,  the  brute  turns  restive,  and  I  am  obliged  to 
let  him  take  his  own  time.  I  wonder  do  other  novel- 
writers  experience  this  fatalism?  They  7nust  go  a  cer-  23 
tain  way,  in  spite  of  themselves.  I  have  been  surprised 
at  the  observations  made  by  some  of  my  characters.  It 
seems  as  if  an  occult  Power  was  moving  the  pen.  The 
personage  does  or  says  something,  and  I  ask,  how  the 
dickens  did  he  come  to  think  of  that?  Every  man  has  30 
remarked  in  dreams,  the  vast  dramatic  power  which  is 
sometimes  evinced;  I  won't  say  the  surprising  power,  for 
nothing  does  surprise  you  in  dreams.  But  those  strange 
characters  you  meet  make  instant  observations  of  which 


212  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

you  never  can  have  thought  previously.  In  like  manner, 
the  imagination  foretells  things.  We  spake  anon  of  the 
inflated  style  of  some  writers.  What  also  if  there  is  an 
afflated  style — when  a  writer  is  like  a  Pythoness  on  her 
5  oracle  tripod,  and  mighty  words,  words  which  he  cannot 
help,  come  blowing,  and  bellowing,  and  whistling,  and 
moaning  through  the  speaking  pipes  of  his  bodily  organ? 
I  have  told  you  it  was  a  very  queer  shock  to  me  the  other 
day  when,  with  a  letter  of  introduction  in  his  hand,  the 

lo  artist's  (not  my)  Philip  Firmin  walked  into  this  room,  and 
sat  down  in  the  chair  opposite.  In  the  novel  of  Pendennis, 
written  ten  years  ago,  there  is  an  account  of  a  certain 
Costigan,  whom  I  had  invented  (as  I  suppose  authors 
invent  their  personages  out  of  scraps,  heel-taps,  odds 

15  and  ends  of  characters).  I  was  smoking  in  a  tavern 
parlor  one  night — and  this  Costigan  came  into  the 
room  alive — the  very  man: — the  most  remarkable  re- 
semblance of  the  printed  sketches  of  the  man,  of  the 
rude  drawings  in  which  I  had  depicted  him.     He  had 

20  the  same  little  coat,  the  same  battered  hat,  cocked  on 
one  eye,  the  same  twinkle  in  that  eye.  "Sir,"  said  I, 
knowing  him  to  be  an  old  friend  whom  I  had  met 
in  unknown  regions,  "Sir,"  I  said,  "may  I  offer  you 
a  glass  of  brandy-and-water?"     "Bedad,  ye  may,"  says 

25  he,  ^'and  I  'II  sing  ye  a  song  tu."  Of  course  he  spoke  with 
an  Irish  brogue.  Of  course  he  had  been  in  the  army. 
In  ten  minutes  he  pulled  out  an  Army  Agent's  account, 
whereon  his  name  was  written.  A  few  months  after  we 
read  of  him  in  a  police  court.     How  had  I  come  to  know 

30  him,  to  divine  him?  Nothing  shall  convince  me  that  I 
have  not  seen  that  man  in  the  world  of  spirits.  In  the 
world  of  spirits  and  water  I  know  I  did :  but  that  is  a  mere 
quibble  of  words.  I  was  not  surprised  when  he  spoke  in 
an  Irish  brogue.     I  had  had  cognizance  of  him  before 


De  Finibus  213 

somehow.  Who  has  not  felt  that  little  shock  which  arises 
when  a  person,  a  place,  some  words  in  a  book  (there  is 
always  a  collocation)  present  themselves  to  you,  and  you 
know  that  you  have  before  met  the  same  person,  words, 
scene,  and  so  forth?  5 

They  used  to  call  the  good  Sir  Walter  the  "Wizard  of 
the  North."  What  if  some  writer  should  appear  who 
can  write  so  enchantingly  that  he  shall  be  able  to  call  into 
actual  life  the  people  whom  he  invents?  What  if  Mignon, 
and  Margaret,  and  Goetz  von  Berlichingen  are  alive  now  10 
(though  I  don't  say  they  are  visible),  and  Dugald 
Dalgetty  and  Ivanhoe  were  to  step  in  at  that  open  win- 
dow by  the  little  garden  yonder?  Suppose  Uncas  and 
our  noble  old  Leather  Stocking  were  to  glide  silent  in? 
Suppose  Athos,  Porthos,  and  Aramis  should  enter  with  a  15 
noiseless  swagger,  curling  their  moustaches?  And  dear- 
est Amelia  Booth,  on  Uncle  Toby's  arm;  and  Tittlebat 
Titmouse,  with  his  hair  dyed  green;  and  all  the  Crummies 
company  of  comedians,  with  the  Gil  Bias  troop;  and  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley;  and  the  greatest  of  all  crazy  gentle-  20 
men,  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha,  with  his  blessed  squire? 
I  say  to  you,  I  look  rather  wistfully  toward  the  window, 
musing  upon  these  people.  Were  any  of  them  to  enter, 
I  think  I  should  not  be  very  much  frightened.  Dear  old 
friends,  what  pleasant  hours  I  have  had  with  them!  We  25 
do  not  see  each  other  very  often,  but  when  we  do,  we  are 
ever  happy  to  meet.  I  had  a  capital  half  hour  with  Jacob 
Faithful  last  night;  when  the  last  sheet  was  corrected, 
when  "Finis"  had  been  written,  and  the  printer's  boy, 
with  the  copy,  was  safe  in  Green  Arbor  Court.  30 

So  you  are  gone,  little  printer's  boy,  with  the  last 
scratches  and  corrections  on  the  proof,  and  a  fine  flourish 
by  way  of  Finis  at  the  story's  end.  The  last  corrections? 
I  say  those  last  corrections  seem  never  to  be  finished.     A 


214  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 

plague  upon  the  weeds!  Every  day,  when  I  walk  in  my 
own  little  literary  garden-plot,  I  spy  some,  and  should 
Uke  to  have  a  spud,  and  root  them  out.  Those  idle  words, 
neighbor,  are  past  remedy.     That  turning  back  to  the 

5  old  pages  produces  anything  but  elation  of  mind.  Would 
you  not  pay  a  pretty  fine  to  be  able  to  cancel  some  of 
them?  Oh,  the  sad  old  pages,  the  dull  old  pages!  Oh, 
the  cares,  the  ennui,  the  squabbles,  the  repetitions,  the 
old  conversations  over  and  over  again!     But  now  and 

lo  again  a  kind  thought  is  recalled,  and  now  and  again  a 
dear  memory.  Yet  a  few  chapters  more,  and  then  the 
last:  after  which,  behold  Finis  itself  come  to  an  end,  and 
the  Infinite  begun. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

MANNERS 

"How  near  to  good  is  what  is  fair! 
Which  we  no  sooner  see, 
But  with  the  lines  and  outward  air 
Our  senses  taken  be. 

Again  yourselves  compose,  $ 

And  now  put  all  the  aptness  on 
Of  Figure,  that  Proportion 

Or  Color  can  disclose; 
That  if  those  silent  arts  were  lost, 
Design  and  Picture,  they  might  boast  lo 

From  you  a  newer  ground. 
Instructed  by  the  heightening  sense 
Of  dignity  and  reverence 

In  their  true  motions  found." 

Ben  Jonson.  15 

Half  the  world,  it  is  said,  knows  not  how  the  other 
half  lives.  Our  Exploring  Expedition  saw  the  Feejee 
islanders  getting  their  dinner  off  human  bones;  and 
they  are  said  to  eat  their  own  wives  and  children. 
The  husbandry  of  the  modern  inhabitants  of  Gournou  20 
(west  of  old  Thebes)  is  philosophical  to  a  fault.  To  set 
up  their  housekeeping,  nothing  is  requisite  but  two  or 
three  earthen  pots,  a  stone  to  grind  meal,  and  a  mat 
which  is  the  bed.  The  house,  namely,  a  tomb,  is  ready 
without  rent  or  taxes.  No  rain  can  pass  through  the  25 
roof,  and  there  is  no  door,  for  there  is  no  want  of  one,  as 
there  is  nothing  to  lose.     If  the  house  do  not  please 

2Ii 


2i6  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

them,  they  walk  out  and  enter  another,  as  there  are 
several  hundreds  at  their  command.  "It  is  somewhat 
singular,"  adds  Belzoni,  to  whom  we  owe  this  account, 
"to  talk  of  happiness  among  people  who  live  in  sep- 
5  ulchers,  among  the  corpses  and  rags  of  an  ancient  nation 
which  they  know  nothing  of."  In  the  deserts  of  Borgoo, 
the  rock-Tibboos  still  dwell  in  caves,  like  cliff  swallows, 
and  the  language  of  these  negroes  is  compared  by  their 
neighbors  to  the  shrieking  of  bats,  and  to  the  whistling 

lo  of  birds.  Again,  the  Bornoos  have  no  proper  names; 
individuals  are  called  after  their  height,  thickness,  or 
other  accidental  quality,  and  have  nicknames  merely. 
But  the  salt,  the  dates,  the  ivory,  and  the  gold,  for  which 
these  horrible  regions  are  visited,  find  their  way  into 

IS  countries,  where  the  purchaser  and  consumer  can  hardly 
be  ranked  in  one  race  with  these  cannibals  and  man- 
stealers:  countries  where  man  serves  himself  with  metals, 
wood,  stone,  glass,  gum,  cotton,  silk,  and  wool;  honors 
himself  with  architecture;  writes  laws,  and  contrives  to 

20  execute  his  will  through  the  hands  of  many  nations;  and 
especially  establishes  a  select  society,  running  through  all 
the  countries  of  intelligent  men,  a  self-constituted  aris- 
tocracy, or  fraternity  of  the  best,  which,  without  written 
law,  or  exact  usage  of  any  kind,  perpetuates  itself,  colo- 

25  nizes  every  new-planted  island,  and  adopts  and  makes 
its  own,  whatever  personal  beauty  or  extraordinary 
native  endowment  anywhere  appears. 

What  fact  more  conspicuous  in  modern  history  than 
the  creation  of  the  gentleman?     Chivalry  is  that,  and 

30  loyalty  is  that,  and,  in  English  literature,  half  the  drama, 
and  all  the  novels,  from  Sir  Philip  Sidney  to  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  paint  this  figure.  The  word  gentleman,  which,  like 
the  word  Christian,  must  hereafter  characterize  the 
present  and  the  few  preceding  centuries,  by  the  impor- 


Manners  217 

tance  attached  to  it,  is  a  homage  to  personal  and  incom- 
municable properties.  Frivolous  and  fantastic  additions 
have  got  associated  with  the  name,  but  the  steady  inter- 
est of  mankind  in  it  must  be  attributed  to  the  valuable 
properties  which  it  designated.  An  element  which  unites  5 
all  the  most  forcible  persons  of  every  country,  makes  them 
intelligible  and  agreeable  to  each  other,  and  is  somewhat 
so  precise  that  it  is  at  once  felt  if  an  individual  lack  the 
masonic  sign,  cannot  be  any  casual  product,  but  must  be 
an  average  result  of  the  character  and  faculties  univer-  10 
sally  found  in  men.  It  seems  a  certain  permanent 
average;  as  the  atmosphere  is  a  permanent  composition, 
whilst  so  many  gases  are  combined  only  to  be  decom- 
pounded. Comme  ilfaut,  is  the  Frenchman's  description 
of  good  society,  as  we  must  he.  It  is  a  spontaneous  fruit  1 5 
of  talents  and  feelings  of  precisely  that  class  who  have 
most  vigor,  who  take  the  lead  in  the  world  of  this  hour, 
and,  though  far  from  pure,  far  from  constituting  the 
gladdest  and  highest  tone  of  human  feeling,  is  as  good  as 
the  whole  society  permits  it  to  be.  It  is  made  of  the  20 
spirit,  more  than  of  the  talent  of  men,  and  is  a  compound 
result,  into  which  every  great  force  enters  as  an  ingredient, 
namely,  virtue,  wit,  beauty,  wealth,  and  power. 

There  is  something  equivocal  in  all  the  words  in  use 
to  express  the  excellence  of  manners  and  social  cultiva-  25 
tion,  because  the  quantities  are  fluxional,  and  the  last 
effect  is  assumed  by  the  senses  as  the  cause.  The  word 
gentleman  has  not  any  correlative  abstract  to  express  the 
quality.  Gentility  \%  mean,  Q,x\dgentilesse  is  obsolete.  But 
we  must  keep  alive  in  the  vernacular  the  distinction  30 
between  fashion,  a  word  of  narrow  and  often  sinister 
meaning,  and  the  heroic  character  which  the  gentleman 
imports.  The  usual  words,  however,  must  be  respected: 
they  will  be  found  to  contain  the  root  of  the  matter. 


21 8  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

The  point  of  distinction  in  all  this  class  of  names,  as 
courtesy,  chivalry,  fashion,  and  the  like,  is,  that  the  flower 
and  the  fruit,  not  the  grain  of  the  tree,  are  contemplated. 
It  is  beauty  which  is  the  aim  this  time,  and  not  worth. 
5  The  result  is  now  in  question,  although  our  words  in- 
timate well  enough  the  popular  feeling,  that  the  appear- 
ance supposes  a  substance.  The  gentleman  is  a  man  of 
truth,  lord  of  his  own  actions,  and  expressing  that  lord- 
ship in  his  behavior,  not  in  any  manner  dependent  and 

lo  servile,  either  on  persons,  or  opinions,  or  possessions. 
Beyond  this  fact  of  truth  and  real  force,  the  word  denotes 
good-nature  or  benevolence:  manhood  first,  and  then 
gentleness.  The  popular  notion  certainly  adds  a  con- 
dition of  ease  and  fortune.     But  that  is  a  natural  result 

15  of  personal  force  and  love,  that  they  should  possess  and 
dispense  the  goods  of  the  world.  In  times  of  violence, 
every  eminent  person  must  fall  in  with  many  opportuni- 
ties to  approve  his  stoutness  and  worth;  therefore,  every 
man's  name  that  emerged  at  all  from  the  mass  in  the 

20  feudal  ages,  rattles  in  our  ear  like  a  flourish  of  trumpets. 
But  personal  force  never  goes  out  of  fashion.  That  is 
still  paramount  to-day,  and,  in  the  moving  crowd  of  good 
society,  the  men  of  valor  and  reality  are  known,  and 
rise  to  their  natural  place.     The  competition  is  trans- 

25  f erred  from  war  to  politics  and  trade,  but  the  personal 
force  appears  readily  enough  in  these  new  arenas. 

Power  first,  or  no  leading  class.  In  politics  and  in 
trade,  bruisers  and  pirates  are  of  better  promise  than 
talkers  and  clerks.     God  knows  that  all  sorts  of  gentle- 

30  men  knock  at  the  door;  but  whenever  used  in  strictness 
and  with  any  emphasis,  the  name  will  be  found  to  point 
at  original  energy.  It  describes  a  man  standing  in  his 
own  right,  and  working  after  untaught  methods.  In  a 
good  lord,  there  must  first  be  a  good  animal,  at  least  to 


Manners  219 

the  extent  of  yielding  the  incomparable  advantage  of 
animal  spirits.  The  ruling  class  must  have  more,  but 
they  must  have  these,  giving  in  every  company  the  sense 
of  power,  which  makes  things  easy  to  be  done  which 
daunt  the  wise.  The  society  of  the  energetic  class,  in  5 
their  friendly  and  festive  meetings,  is  full  of  courage,  and 
of  attempts,  which  intimidate  the  pale  scholar.  The 
courage  which  girls  exhibit  is  like  the  battle  of  Lundy's 
Lane,  or  a  sea-fight.  The  intellect  relies  on  memory  to 
make  some  supplies  to  face  these  extemporaneous  squad-  10 
rons.  But  memory  is  a  base  mendicant  with  basket  and 
badge,  in  the  presence  of  these  sudden  masters.  The 
rulers  of  society  must  be  up  to  the  work  of  the  world, 
and  equal  to  their  versatile  office:  men  of  the  right 
Csesarian  pattern,  who  have  great  range  of  affinity.  I  15 
am  far  from  believing  the  timid  maxim  of  Lord  Falkland 
("that  for  ceremony  there  must  go  two  to  it;  since  a  bold 
fellow  will  go  through  the  cunningest  forms"),  and  am  of 
opinion  that  the  gentleman  is  the  bold  fellow  whose 
forms  are  not  to  be  broken  through;  and  only  that  20 
plenteous  nature  is  rightful  master,  which  is  the  comple- 
ment of  whatever  person  it  converses  with.  My  gentle- 
man gives  the  law  where  he  is;  he  will  out-pray  saints  in 
chapel,  out-general  veterans  in  the  field,  and  outshine  all 
courtesy  in  the  hall.  He  is  good  company  for  pirates,  25 
and  good  with  academicians;  so  that  it  is  useless  to 
fortify  yourself  against  him;  he  has  the  private  entrance 
to  all  minds,  and  I  could  as  easily  exclude  myself  as  him. 
The  famous  gentlemen  of  Asia  and  Europe  have  been  of 
the  strong  type:  Saladin,  Sapor,  the  Cid,  Julius  Caesar,  30 
Scipio,  Alexander,  Pericles,  and  the  lordliest  personages. 
They  sat  very  carelessly  in  their  chairs,  and  were  too 
excellent  themselves,  to  value  any  condition  at  a  high 
rate. 


220  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

A  plentiful  fortune  is  reckoned  necessary,  in  the  popu- 
lar judgment,  to  the  completion  of  this  man  of  the 
world:  and  it  is  a  material  deputy  which  walks  through 
the  dance  which  the  iirst  has  led.  Money  is  not  essen- 
5  tial,  but  this  wide  affinity  is,  which  transcends  the  habits 
of  clique  and  caste,  and  makes  itself  felt  by  men  of  all 
classes.  If  the  aristocrat  is  only  valid  in  fashionable 
circles,  and  not  with  truckmen,  he  will  never  be  a  leader 
in  fashion;  and  if  the  man  of  the  people  cannot  speak 

lo  on  equal  terms  with  the  gentleman,  so  that  the  gentle- 
man shall  perceive  that  he  is  already  really  of  his  own 
order,  he  is  not  to  be  feared.  Diogenes,  Socrates,  and 
Epaminondas,  are  gentlemen  of  the  best  blood,  who 
have   chosen   the   condition  of  poverty,   when   that  of 

IS  wealth  was  equally  open  to  them.  I  use  these  old 
names,  but  the  men  I  speak  of  are  my  contemporaries. 
Fortune  will  not  supply  to  every  generation  one  of  these 
well-appointed  knights,  but  every  collection  of  men  fur- 
nishes some  example  of  the  class:  and  the  politics  of  this 

20  country,  and  the  trade  of  every  town,  are  controlled  by 
these  hardy  and  irresponsible  doers,  who  have  invention 
to  take  the  lead,  and  a  broad  sympathy  which  puts  them 
in  fellowship  with  crowds,  and  makes  their  action 
popular. 

25  The  manners  of  this  class  are  observed  and  caught 
with  devotion  by  men  of  taste.  The  association  of  these 
masters  with  each  other,  and  with  men  intelligent  of 
their  merits,  is  mutually  agreeable  and  stimulating.  The 
good  forms,  the   happiest  expressions  of   each,  are  re- 

30  peated  and  adopted.  By  swift  consent,  everything 
superfluous  is  dropped,  everything  graceful  is  renewed. 
Fine  manners  show  themselves  formidable  to  the  uncul- 
tivated man.  They  are  a  subtler  science  of  defence  to 
parry  and  intimidate;  but  once  matched  by  the  skill  of 


Manners  221 

the  other  party,  they  drop  the  point  of  the  sword — ■ 
points  and  fences  disappear,  and  the  youth  finds  himself 
in  a  more  transparent  atmosphere,  wherein  Hfe  is  a  less 
troublesome  game,  and  not  a  misunderstanding  arises 
between  the  players.  Manners  aim  to  facilitate  life,  to  5 
get  rid  of  impediments,  and  bring  the  man  pure  to  ener- 
gize. They  aid  our  dealings  and  conversation,  as  a 
railway  aids  traveling,  by  getting  rid  of  all  avoidable 
obstructions  of  the  road,  and  leaving  nothing  to  be  con- 
quered but  pure  space.  These  forms  very  soon  become  10 
fixed,  and  a  fine  sense  of  propriety  is  cultivated  with  the 
more  heed,  that  it  becomes  a  badge  of  social  and  civil 
distinctions.  Thus  grows  up  Fashion,  an  equivocal 
semblance,  the  most  puissant,  the  most  fantastic  and 
frivolous,  the  most  feared  and  followed,  and  which  15 
morals  and  violence  assault  in  vain. 

There  exists  a  strict  relation  between  the  class  of 
power,  and  the  exclusive  and  polished  circles.  The  last 
are  always  filled  or  filling  from  the  first.  The  strong 
men  usually  give  some  allowance  even  to  the  petulances  20 
of  fashion,  for  that  affinity  they  find  in  it.  Napoleon, 
child  of  the  revolution,  destroyer  of  the  old  noblesse, 
never  ceased  to  court  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain:  doubt- 
less with  the  feeling,  that  fashion  is  a  homage  to  men  of 
his  stamp.  Fashion,  though  in  a  strange  way,  repre-  25 
sents  all  manly  virtue.  It  is  virtue  gone  to  seed:  it  is 
a  kind  of  posthumous  honor.  It  does  not  often  caress 
the  great,  but  the  children  of  the  great:  it  is  a  hall  of  the 
Past.  It  usually  sets  its  face  against  the  great  of  this 
hour.  Great  men  are  not  commonly  in  its  halls:  they  3° 
are  absent  in  the  field:  they  are  working,  not  triumph- 
ing. Fashion  is  made  up  of  their  children;  of  those, 
who  through  the  value  and  virtue  of  somebody,  have 
acquired  luster  to  their  name,  marks  of  distinction,  means 


222  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

of  cultivation  and  generosity,  and,  in  their  physical 
organization,  a  certain  health  and  excellence  which 
secures  to  them,  if  not  the  highest  power  to  work,  yet 
high  power  to  enjoy.  The  class  of  power,  the  working 
5  heroes,  the  Cortez,  the  Nelson,  the  Napoleon,  see  that 
this  is  the  festivity  and  permanent  celebration  of  such 
as  they;  that  fashion  is  funded  talent;  is  Mexico,  Marengo 
and  Trafalgar,  beaten  out  thin;  that  the  brilliant  names 
of  fashion  run  back  to  just  such  busy  names  as  their 

lo  own,  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago.  They  are  the  sowers, 
their  sons  shall  be  the  reapers,  and  their  sons,  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  things,  must  yield  the  possession  of  the 
harvest  to  new  competitors  with  keener  eyes  and  stronger 
frames.     The  city  is  recruited  from  the  country.     In 

15  the  year  1805,  it  is  said,  every  legitimate  monarch  in 
Europe  was  imbecile.  The  city  would  have  died  out, 
rotted,  and  exploded  long  ago,  but  that  it  was  reinforced 
from  the  fields.  It  is  only  country  which  came  to  town 
day  before  yesterday,  that  is  city  and  court  to-day. 

20  Aristocracy  and  fashion  are  certain  inevitable  results. 
These  mutual  selections  are  indestructible.  If  they  pro- 
voke anger  in  the,  least  favored  class,  and  the  excluded 
majority  revenge  themselves  on  the  excluding  minority, 
by  the  strong  hand,  and  kill  them,  at  once  a  new  class 

25  finds  itself  at  the  top,  as  certainly  as  cream  rises  in  a 
bowl  of  milk:  and  if  the  people  should  destroy  class  after 
class,  until  two  men  only  were  left,  one  of  these  would 
be  the  leader,  and  would  be  involuntarily  served  and 
copied  by  the  other.     You  may  keep  this  minority  out 

30  of  sight  and  out  of  mind,  but  it  is  tenacious  of  life,  and 
is  one  of  the  estates  of  the  realm.  I  am  the  more  struck 
with  this  tenacity,  when  I  seek  its  work.  It  respects 
the  administration  of  such  unimportant  matters,  that 
we  should  not  look  for  any  durability  in  its  rule.     We 


Manners  223 

sometimes  meet  men  under  some  strong  moral  influence, 
as,  a  patriotic,  a  literary,  a  religious  movement,  and  feel 
that  the  moral  sentiment  rules  man  and  nature.  We 
think  all  other  distinctions  and  ties  will  be  slight  and 
fugitive,  this  of  caste  or  fashion,  for  example;  yet  come  5 
from  year  to  year,  and  see  how  permanent  that  is,  in 
this  Boston  or  New  York  life  of  man,  where,  too,  it  has 
not  the  least  countenance  from  the  law  of  the  land. 
Not  in  Egypt  or  in  India,  a  firmer  or  more  impassable 
line.  Here  are  associations  whose  ties  go  over,  and  under  10 
and  through  it,  a  meeting  of  merchants,  a  military 
corps,  a  college-class,  a  fire-club,  a  professional  associa- 
tion, a  political,  a  religious  convention; — the  persons 
seem  to  draw  inseparably  near;  yet,  that  assembly  once 
dispersed,  its  members  will  not  in  the  year  meet  again.  15 
Each  returns  to  his  degree  in  the  scale  of  good  society, 
porcelain  remains  porcelain,  and  earthen  earthen.  The 
objects  of  fashion  may  be  frivolous,  or  fashion  may  be 
objectless,  but  the  nature  of  this  union  and  selection 
can  be  neither  frivolous  nor  accidental.  Each  man's  20 
rank  in  that  perfect  graduation  depends  on  some  sym- 
metry in  his  structure,  or  some  agreement  in  his  struc- 
ture to  the  symmetry  of  society.  Its  doors  unbar  in- 
stantaneously to  a  natural  claim  of  their  own  kind.  A 
natural  gentleman  finds  his  way  in,  and  will  keep  the  25 
oldest  patrician  out,  who  has  lost  his  intrinsic  rank. 
Fashion  understands  itself;  good  breeding  of  every 
country  and  personal  superiority  readily  fraternize  with 
that  of  every  other.  The  chiefs  of  savage  tribes  have 
distinguished  themselves  in  London  and  Paris,  by  the  30 
purity  of  their  tournure. 

To  say  what  good  of  fashion  we  can — it  rests  on 
reality,  and  hates  nothing  so  much  as  pretenders; — to 
exclude  and  mystify  pretenders,  and  send  them  into 


224  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

everlasting  "Coventry,"  is  its  delight.  We  contemn,  in 
turn,  every  other  gift  of  men  of  the  world;  but  the  habit 
even  in  little  and  the  least  matters,  of  not  appealing 
to  any  but  our  own  sense  of  propriety,  constitutes  the 
5  foundation  of  all  chivalry.  There  is  almost  no  kind  of 
self-reliance,  so  it  be  sane  and  proportioned,  which  fashion 
does  not  occasionally  adopt,  and  give  it  the  freedom  of 
its  saloons.  A  sainted  soul  is  always  elegant,  and,  if  it 
will,  passes  unchallenged  into  the  most  guarded  ring. 

lo  But  so  will  Jock  the  teamster  pass,  in  some  crisis  that 
brings  him  thither,  and  find  favor,  as  long  as  his  head  is 
not  giddy  with  the  new  circumstance,  and  the  iron  shoes 
do  not  wish  to  dance  in  waltzes  and  cotillions.  For  there 
is  nothing  settled  in  manners,  but  the  laws  of  behavior 

15  yield  to  the  energy  of  the  individual.  The  maiden  at 
her  first  ball,  the  countryman  at  a  city  dinner,  believes 
that  there  is  a  ritual  according  to  which  every  act  and 
compliment  must  be  performed,  or  the  failing  party  must 
be  cast  out  of  this  presence.     Later,  they  learn  that  good 

20  sense  and  character  make  their  own  forms  every  moment, 
and  speak  or  abstain,  take  wine  or  refuse  it,  stay  or  go, 
sit  in  a  chair  or  sprawl  with  children  on  the  floor,  or 
stand  on  their  head,  or  what  else  soever,  in  a  new  and 
aboriginal  way:  and  that  strong  will  is  always  in  fashion, 

25  let  who  will  be  unfashionable.  All  that  fashion  demands 
is  composure,  and  self-content.  A  circle  of  men  perfectly 
well-bred,  would  be  a  company  of  sensible  persons,  in 
which  every  man's  native  manners  and  character  ap- 
peared.    If  the  fashionist  have  not  this  quality,  he  is 

20  nothing.  We  are  such  lovers  of  self-reliance,  that  we 
excuse  in  a  man  many  sins,  if  he  wall  show  us  a  complete 
satisfaction  in  his  position,  which  asks  no  leave  to  be,  of 
mine,  or  any  man's  good  opinion.  But  any  deference  to 
some  eminent  man  or  woman  of  the  world,  forfeits  all 


Manners  225 

privilege  of  nobility.  He  is  an  underling:  I  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  him;  I  will  speak  with  his  master.  A  man 
should  not  go  where  he  cannot  carry  his  whole  sphere  or 
society  with  him — not  bodily,  the  whole  circle  of  his 
friends,  but  atmospherically.  He  should  preserve  in  a  5 
new  company  the  same  attitude  of  mind  and  reality  of 
relation,  which  his  daily  associates  draw  him  to,  else  he 
is  shorn  of  his  best  beams,  and  will  be  an  orphan  in  the 
merriest  club.     "If  you  could  see  Vich  Ian  Vohr  with 

his  tail  on! "     But  Vich  Ian  Vohr  must  always  carry  10 

his  belongings  in  some  fashion,  if  not  added  as  honor, 
then  severed  as  disgrace. 

There  will  always  be  in  society  certain  persons  who 
are  Mercuries  of  its  approbation,  and  whose  glance  will  at 
any  time  determine  for  the  curious  their  standing  in  15 
the  world.  These  are  the  chamberlains  of  the  lesser 
gods.  Accept  their  coldness  as  an  omen  of  grace  with 
the  loftier  deities,  and  allow  them  all  their  privilege. 
They  are  clear  in  their  office,  nor  could  they  be  thus  for- 
midable, without  their  own  merits.  But  do  not  measure  20 
the  importance  of  this  class  by  their  pretension,  or  imag- 
ine that  a  fop  can  be  the  dispenser  of  honor  and  shame. 
They  pass  also  at  their  just  rate;  for  how  can  they  other- 
wise, in  circles  which  exist  as  a  sort  of  herald's  office  for 
the  sifting  of  character?  25 

As  the  first  thing  man  requires  of  man,  is  reality,  so, 
that  appears  in  all  the  forms  of  society.  We  pointedly, 
and  by  name,  introduce  the  parties  to  each  other.  Know 
you  before  all  heaven  and  earth,  that  this  is  Andrew,  and 
this  is  Gregory; — they  look  each  other  in  the  eye;  they  30 
grasp  each  other's  hand,  to  identify  and  signalize  each 
other.  It  is  a  great  satisfaction.  A  gentleman  never 
dodges:  his  eyes  look  straight  forward,  and  he  assures 
the  other  party,  first  of  all,  that  he  has  been  met.     For 


226  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

what  is  it  that  we  seek,  in  so  many  visits  and  hospitalities? 
Is  it  your  draperies,  pictures,  and  decorations?  Or  do 
we  not  insatiably  ask.  Was  a  man  in  the  house?  I  may 
easily  go  into  a  great  household  where  there  is  much  sub- 
5  stance,  excellent  provision  for  comfort,  luxury,  and  taste, 
and  yet  not  encounter  there  any  Amphitryon,  who  shall 
subordinate  these  appendages.  I  may  go  into  a  cottage, 
and  find  a  farmer  who  feels  that  he  is  the  man  I  have 
come  to  see,  and  fronts  me  accordingly.     It  was  therefore 

lo  a  very  natural  point  of  feudal  etiquette,  that  a  gentleman 
who  received  a  visit,  though  it  were  of  his  sovereign, 
should  not  leave  his  roof,  but  should  wait  his  arrival  at 
the  door  of  his  house.  No  house,  though  it  were  the 
Tuileries,  or  the  Escurial,  is  good  for  any  thing  without  a 

1 5  master.  And  yet  we  are  not  often  gratified  by  this  hospi- 
tality. Every  body  we  know  surrounds  himself  with  a 
fine  house,  fine  books,  conservatory,  gardens,  equipage, 
and  all  manner  of  toys,  as  screens  to  interpose  between 
himself  and  his  guest.     Does  it  not  seem  as  if  man  was 

2o  of  a  very  sly,  elusive  nature,  and  dreaded  nothing  so 
much  as  a  full  rencontre  front  to  front  with  his  fellow? 
It  were  unmerciful,  I  know,  quite  to  abolish  the  use  of 
these  screens,  which  are  of  eminent  convenience,  whether 
the  guest  is  too  great,  or  too  little.     We  call  together 

2  5  many  friends  who  keep  each  other  in  play,  or,  by  luxuries 
and  ornaments  we  amuse  the  young  people,  and  guard  our 
retirement.  Or  if,  perchance,  a  searching  realist  comes 
to  our  gate,  before  whose  eye  we  have  no  care  to  stand, 
then  again  we  run  to  our  curtain,  and  hide  as  Adam  at 

30  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  in  the  garden.  Cardinal  Cap- 
rara,  the  Pope's  legate  at  Paris,  defended  himself  from 
the  glances  of  Napoleon,  by  an  immense  pair  of  green 
spectacles.  Napoleon  remarked  them,  and  speedily 
managed  to  rally  them  off;  and  yet  Napoleon,  in  his  turn, 


Manners  22/ 

was  not  great  enough  with  eight  hundred  thousand  troops 
at  his  back,  to  face  a  pair  of  freeborn  eyes,  but  fenced 
himself  with  etiquette,  and  within  triple  barriers  of 
reserve;  and,  as  all  the  world  knows  from  Madame  de 
Stael,  was  wont,  when  he  found  himself  observed,  to  5 
discharge  his  face  of  all  expression.  But  emperors  and 
rich  men  are  by  no  means  the  most  skilful  masters  of  good 
manners.  No  rent-roll  nor  army-list  can  dignify  skulking 
and  dissimulation:  and  -the  first  point  of  courtesy  must 
always  be  truth,  as  really  all  the  forms  of  good-breeding  10 
point  that  way. 

I  have  Just  been  reading,  in  Mr.  Hazlitt's  translation, 
Montaigne's  account  of  his  journey  into  Italy,  and  am 
struck  with  nothing  more  agreeably  than  the  self-respect- 
ing fashions  of  the  time.  His  arrival  in  each  place,  the  15 
arrival  of  a  gentleman  of  France,  is  an  event  of  some  con- 
sequence. Wherever  he  goes,  he  pays  a  visit  to  whatever 
prince  or  gentleman  of  note  resides  upon  his  road,  as  a 
duty  to  himself  and  to  civilization.  When  he  leaves 
any  house  in  which  he  has  lodged  for  a  few  weeks,  he  20 
causes  his  arms  to  be  painted  and  hung  up  as  a  perpetual 
sign  to  the  house,  as  was  the  custom  of  the  gentlemen. 

The  complement  of  this  graceful  self-respect,  and  that 
of  all  the  points  of  good  breeding  I  most  require  and 
insist  upon,  is  deference.  I  like  that  every  chair  should  25 
be  a  throne,  and  hold  a  king.  I  prefer  a  tendency  to 
stateliness,  to  an  excess  of  fellowship.  Let  the  incom- 
municable objects  of  nature  and  the  metaphysical  isola- 
tion of  man  teach  us  independence.  Let  us  not  be  too 
much  acquainted.  I  would  have  a  man  enter  his  house  30 
through  a  hall  filled  with  heroic  and  sacred  sculptures, 
that  he  might  not  want  the  hint  of  tranquility  and  self- 
poise.  We  should  meet  each  morning,  as  from,  foreign 
countries,  and  spending  the  day  together,  should  depart 


228  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

at  night,  as  into  foreign  countries.  In  all  things  I  would 
have  the  island  of  a  man  inviolate.  Let  us  sit  apart  as 
the  gods,  talking  from  peak  to  peak  all  round  Olympus. 
No  degree  of  affection  need  invade  this  religion.  This  is 
5  myrrh  and  rosemary  to  keep  the  other  sweet.  Lovers 
should  guard  their  strangeness.  If  they  forgive  too 
much,  all  slides  into  confusion  and  meanness.  It  is  easy 
to  push  this  deference  to  a  Chinese  etiquette;  but  cool- 
ness and  absence  of  heat  and  haste  indicate  fine  qualities. 

lo  A  gentleman  makes  no  noise:  a  lady  is  serene.  Pro- 
portionate is  our  disgust  at  those  invaders  who  fill  a 
studious  house  with  blast  or  running,  to  secure  some 
paltry  convenience.  Not  less  I  dislike  a  low  sympathy 
of    each    with    his    neighbor's    needs.     Must    we    have 

IS  good  understanding  with  one  another's  palates?  as 
foolish  people  who  have  lived  long  together,  know 
when  each  wants  salt  or  sugar.  I  pray  my  companion, 
if  he  wishes  for  bread,  to  ask  me  for  bread,  and  if  he 
wishes  for  sassafras  or  arsenic,   to  ask  me  for  them, 

20  and  not  to  hold  out  his  plate,  as  if  I  knew  already.  Every 
natural  function  can  be  dignified  by  deliberation  and 
privacy.  Let  us  leave  hurry  to  slaves.  The  com- 
pliments and  ceremonies  of  our  breeding  should  signify, 
however  remotely,  the  recollection  of  the  grandeur  of 

25  our  destiny. 

The  flower  of  courtesy  does  not  very  well  bide  hand- 
ling, but  if  we  dare  to  open  another  leaf,  and  explore 
what  parts  go  to  its  conformation,  we  shall  find  also  an 
intellectual  quality.     To  the  leaders  of  men,  the  brain  as 

30  well  as  the  flesh  and  the  heart  must  furnish  a  proportion. 
Defect  in  manners  is  usually  the  defect  of  fine  perceptions. 
Men  are  too  coarsely  made  for  the  delicacy  of  beautiful 
carriage  and  customs.  It  is  not  quite  sufficient  to  good 
breeding,  a  union  of  kindness  and  independence.     We 


Manners  229 

imperatively  require  a  perception  of,  and  a  homage  to 
beauty  in  our  companions.  Other  virtues  are  in  request 
in  the  field  and  work-yard,  but  a  certain  degree  of  taste  is 
not  to  be  spared  in  those  we  sit  with.  I  could  better  eat 
with  one  who  did  not  respect  the  truth  or  the  laws,  than  5 
with  a  sloven  and  unpresentable  person.  Moral  qualities 
rule  the  world,  but  at  short  distances,  the  senses  are  des- 
potic. The  same  discrimination  of  fit  and  fair  runs 
out,  if  with  less  rigor,  into  all  parts  of  life.  The  average 
spirit  of  the  energetic  class  is  good  sense,  acting  under  10 
certain  limitations  and  to  certain  ends.  It  entertains 
every  natural  gift.  Social  in  its  nature,  it  respects  every 
thing  which  tends  to  unite  men.  It  delights  in  measure. 
The  love  of  beauty  is  mainly  the  love  of  measure  or  pro- 
portion. The  person  who  screams,  or  uses  the  super-  15 
lative  degree,  or  converses  with  heat,  puts  whole  draw- 
ing-rooms to  flight.  If  you  wish  to  be  loved,  love  meas- 
ure. You  must  have  genius,  or  a  prodigious  usefulness, 
if  you  will  hide  the  want  of  measure.  This  perception 
comes  in  to  polish  and  perfect  the  parts  of  the  social  20 
instrument.  Society  will  pardon  much  to  genius  and 
special  gifts,  but,  being  in  its  nature  a  convention,  it 
loves  what  is  conventional,  or  what  belongs  to  coming 
together.  That  makes  the  good  and  bad  of  manners, 
namely,  what  helps  or  hinders  the  fellowship.  For  25 
fashion  is  not  good  sense  absolute,  but  relative;  not  good 
sense  private,  but  good  sense  entertaining  company. 
It  hates  corners  and  sharp  points  of  character,  hates 
quarrelsome,  egotistical,  solitary,  and  gloomy  people; 
hates  whatever  can  interfere  with  total  blending  of  par-  30 
ties;  whilst  it  values  all  peculiarities  as  in  the  highest 
degree  refreshing,  which  can  consist  with  good  fellowship. 
And  besides  the  general  infusion  of  wit  to  heighten 
civility,  the  direct  splendor  of  intellectual  power  is  ever 


230  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

welcome  in  fine  society  as  the  costliest  addition  to  its 
rule  and  its  credit. 

The  dry  light  must  shine  in  to  adorn  our  festival, 
but  it  must  be  tempered  and  shaded,  or  that  will  also 
5  offend.  Accuracy  is  essential  to  beauty,  and  quick  per- 
ceptions to  poHteness,  but  not  too  quick  perceptions. 
One  may  be  too  punctual  and  too  precise.  He  must 
leave  the  omniscience  of  business  at  the  door,  when  he 
comes  into  the  palace  of  beauty.     Society  loves  Creole 

10  natures,  and  sleepy,  languishing  manners,  so  that  they 
cover  sense,  grace,  and  good- will;  the  air  of  drowsy 
strength,  which  disarms  criticism;  perhaps,  because  such 
a  person  seems  to  reserve  himself  for  the  best  of  the 
game,  and  not  spend  himself  on  surfaces;  an  ignoring 

IS  eye,  which  does  not  see  the  annoyances,  shifts,  and  in- 
conveniences that  cloud  the  brow  and  smother  the  voice 
of  the  sensitive. 

Therefore,  besides  personal  force  and  so  much  per- 
ception as  constitutes  unerring  taste,  society  demands,  in. 

20  its  patrician  class,  another  element  already  intimated, 
which  it  significantly  terms  good-nature,  expressing  all 
degrees  of  generosity  from  the  lowest  wilHngness  and 
faculty  to  oblige,  up  to  the  heights  of  magnanimity  and 
love.     Insight  we  must  have,  or  we  shall  run  against  one 

25  another,  and  miss  the  way  to  our  food;  but  intellect  is 
selfish  and  barren.  The  secret  of  success  in  society,  is 
a  certain  heartiness  and  sympathy.  A  man  who  is  not 
happy  in  the  company,  cannot  find  any  word  in  his 
memory  that  will  fit  the  occasion.     All  his  information 

30  is  a  little  impertinent.  A  man  who  is  happy  there,  finds 
in  every  turn  of  the  conversation  equally  lucky  occasions 
for  the  introduction  of  that  which  he  has  to  say.  The 
favorites  of  society,  and  what  it  calls  whole  souls,  are 
able  men,  and  of  more  spirit  than  wit,  who  have  no 


Manners  231 

uncomfortable  egotism,  who  but  exactly  fill  the  hour  and 
the  company,  contented  and  contenting,  at  a  marriage 
or  a  funeral,  a  ball  or  a  jury,  a  water-party  or  a  shooting 
march.  England,  which  is  rich  in  gentlemen,  furnished, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  a  good  model  of  5 
that  genius  which  the  world  loves,  in  Mr.  Fox,  who  added 
to  his  great  abilities  the  most  social  disposition,  and  real 
love  of  men.  Parliamentary  history  has  few  better  pas- 
sages than  the  debate,  in  which  Burke  and  Fox  separated 
in  the  House  of  Commons;  when  Fox  urged  on  his  old  10 
friend  the  claims  of  old  friendship  with  such  tenderness 
that  the  house  was  moved  to  tears.  Another  anecdote  is 
so  close  to  my  matter,  that  I  must  hazard  the  story.  A 
tradesman  who  had  long  dunned  him  for  a  note  of  three 
hundred  guineas,  found  him  one  day  counting  gold,  and  15 
demanded  payment:  "No,"  said  Fox,  "I  owe  this  money 
to  Sheridan;  it  is  a  debt  of  honor:  if  an  accident  should 
happen  to  me,  he  has  nothing  to  show."  "Then," 
said  the  creditor,  "  I  change  my  debt  into  a  debt  of  honor," 
and  tore  the  note  in  pieces.  Fox  thanked  the  man  20 
for  his  confidence,  and  paid  him,  saying,  "his  debt 
was  of  older  standing,  and  Sheridan  must  wait."  Lover 
of  liberty,  friend  of  the  Hindoo,  friendof  the  African  slave, 
he  possessed  a  great  personal  popularity;  and  Napoleon 
said  to  him  on  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to  Paris,  in  1805,  25 
"Mr.  Fox  will  always  hold  the  first  place  in  an  assembly 
of  the  Tuileries." 

We  may  easily  seem  ridiculous  in  our  eulogy  of 
courtesy,  whenever  we  insist  on  benevolence  as  its 
foundation.  The  painted  phantasm  Fashion  rises  to  30 
cast  a  species  of  derision  on  what  we  say.  But  I  will 
neither  be  driven  from  some  allowance  to  Fashion,  as 
a  symbolic  institution,  nor  from  the  belief  that  love  is 
the  basis  of  courtesy.     We  must  obtain  that,  if  we  can: 


232  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

but  by  all  means  we  must  affirm  this.  Life  owes  much 
of  its  spirit  to  these  sharp  contrasts.  Fashion  which 
affects  to  be  honor,  is  often,  in  all  men's  experience, 
only  a  ball-room  code.  Yet,  so  long  as  it  is  the  highest 
5  circle  in  the  imagination  of  the  best  heads  on  the  planet, 
there  is  something  necessary  and  excellent  in  it;  for  it  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  men  have  agreed  to  be  the  dupes 
of  any  thing  preposterous;  and  the  respect  which  these 
mysteries  inspire  in  the  most  rude  and  sylvan  characters, 

10  and  the  curiosity  with  which  details  of  high  life  are  read, 
betray  the  universahty  of  the  love  of  cultivated  manners. 
I  know  that  a  comic  disparity  would  be  felt,  if  we  should 
enter  the  acknowdeged  "first  circles,"  and  apply  these 
terrific  standards  of  justice,  beauty,  and  benefit,  to  the 

IS  individuals  actually  found  there.  Monarchs  and  heroes, 
sages  and  lovers,  these  gallants  are  not.  Fashion  has 
many  classes  and  many  rules  of  probation  and  admission; 
and  not  the  best  alone.  There  is  not  only  the  right  of 
conquest,  which  genius  pretends — the  individual  demon- 

20  strating  his  natural  aristocracy  best  of  the  best; — ^but 
less  claims  will  pass  for  the  time;  for  Fashion  loves 
lions,  and  points,  like  Circe,  to  her  horned  company. 
This  gentleman  is  this  afternoon  arrived  from_  Denmark; 
and  that  is  my  Lord  Ride,  who  came  yesterday  from 

25  Bagdat;  here  is  Captain  Friese,  from  Cape  Turnagain; 
and  Captain  Symmes,  from  the  interior  of  the  earth; 
and  Monsieur  Jovaire,  who  came  down  this  morning  in 
a  balloon;  Mr.  Hobnail,  the  reformer;  and  Reverend  Jul 
Bat,  who  has  converted  the  whole  torrid  zone  in  his 

30  Sunday-school;  and  Signor  Torre  del  Greco,  who  ex- 
tinguished Vesuvius,  by  pouring  into  it  the  Bay  of  Naples; 
Spahi,  the  Persian  ambassador;  and  Tul  Wil  Shan,  the 
exiled  nabob  of  Nepaul,  whose  saddle  is  the  new  moon. — ■ 
But  these  are  monsters  of  one  day,  and  to-morrow  will 


Manners  233 

be  dismissed  to  their  holes  and  dens;  for,  in  these  rooms, 
every  chair  is  waited  for.  The  artist,  the  scholar,  and, 
in  general,  the  clerisy,  wins  its  way  up  into  these  places, 
and  gets  represented  here,  somewhat  on  this  footing  of 
conquest.  Another  mode  is  to  pass  through  all  the  5 
degrees,  spending  a  year  and  a  day  in  St.  Michael's 
Square,  being  steeped  in  Cologne  water,  and  perfumed, 
and  dined,  and  introduced,  and  properly  grounded  in 
all  the  biography,  and  politics,  and  anecdotes  of  the 
boudoirs.  10 

Yet  these  fineries  may  have  grace  and  wit.  Let  there 
be  grotesque  sculpture  about  the  gates  and  offices  of 
temples.  Let  the  creed  and  commandments  even  have 
the  saucy  homage  of  parody.  The  forms  of  politeness 
universally  express  benevolence  in  superlative  degrees.  15 
What  if  they  are  in  the  mouths  of  selfish  men,  and  used 
as  means  of  selfishness?  What  if  the  false  gentleman 
almost  bows  the  true  out  of  the  world?  What  if  the 
false  gentleman  contrives  so  to  address  his  companion, 
as  civilly  to  exclude  all  others  from  his  discourse,  and  20 
also  to  make  them  feel  excluded?  Real  service  will  not 
lose  its  nobleness.  All  generosity  is  not  merely  French 
and  sentimental;  nor  is  it  to  be  concealed,  that  living 
blood  and  a  passion  of  kindness  does  at  last  distinguish 
God's  gentleman  from  Fashion's.  The  epitaph  of  Sir  25 
Jenkin  Grout  is  not  wholly  unintelligible  to  the  present 
age.  "Here  lies  Sir  Jenkin  Grout,  who  loved  his  friend, 
and  persuaded  his  enemy:  what  his  mouth  ate,  his  hand 
paid  for:  what  his  servants  robbed,  he  restored:  if  a 
woman  gave  him  pleasure,  he  supported  her  in  pain:  he  30 
never  forgot  his  children:  and  whoso  touched  his  finger, 
drew  after  it  his  whole  body."  Even  the  line  of  heroes 
is  not  utterly  extinct.  There  is  still  ever  some  admirable 
person  in  plain  clothes,  standing  on  the  wharf,  who  jumps 


234  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

in  to  rescue  a  drowning  man;  there  is  still  some  absurd 
inventor  of  charities;  some  guide  and  comforter  of  run- 
away slaves;  some  friend  of  Poland;  some  Philhellene; 
some  fanatic  who  plants  shade-trees  for  the  second  and 
5  third  generation,  and  orchards  when  he  is  grown  old; 
some  well-concealed  piety;  some  just  man  happy  in  an 
ill-fame;  some  youth  ashamed  of  the  favors  of  fortune, 
and  impatiently  casting  them  on  other  shoulders. 
And  these  are  the  centers  of  society,  on  which  it  returns 

lo  for  fresh  impulses.  These  are  the  creators  of  Fashion, 
which  is  an  attempt  to  organize  beauty  of  behavior. 
The  beautiful  and  the  generous  are,  in  the  theory,  the 
doctors  and  apostles  of  this  church:  Scipio,  and  the  Cid, 
and  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  Washington,  and  every  pure 

15  and  valiant  heart,  who  worshipped  Beauty  by  word  and 
by  deed.  The  persons  who  constitute  the  natural  aristoc- 
racy, are  not  found  in  the  actual  aristocracy,  or,  only  on 
its  edge;  as  the  chemical  energy  of  the  spectrum  is 
found  to  be  greatest,  just  outside  of  the  spectrum.     Yet 

20  that  is  the  infirmity  of  the  seneschals,  who  do  not  know 
their  sovereign  when  he  appears.  The  theory  of  society 
supposes  the  existence  and  sovereignty  of  these.  It 
divines  afar  off  their  coming.  It  says  with  the  elder 
gods — 


25 


"As  Heaven  and  Earth  are  fairer  far 
Than  Chaos  and  blank  Darkness,  though  once  chiefs; 
And  as  we  show  bej'ond  that  Heaven  and  Earth, 
In  form  and  shape  compact  and  beautiful; 
So,  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads; 
30  A  power,  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us, 

And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 
In  glory  that  old  Darkness: 

for,  'tis  the  eternal  law, 

That  first  in  beauty  shall  be  first  in  might." 


Manners  '  235 

Therefore,  within  the  ethnical  circle  of  good  society, 
there  is  a  narrower  and  higher  circle,  concentration  of 
its  light,  and  flower  of  courtesy,  to  which  there  is  always 
a  tacit  appeal  of  pride  and  reference,  as  to  its  inner  and 
imperial  court,  the  parliament  of  love  and  chivalry.  And  5 
this  is  constituted  of  those  persons  in  whom  heroic  dis- 
positions are  native,  with  the  love  of  beauty,  the  delight 
in  society,  and  the  power  to  embellish  the  passing  day. 
If  the  individuals  who  compose  the  purest  circles  of 
aristocracy  in  Europe,  the  guarded  blood  of  centuries,  10 
should  pass  in  review,  in  such  a  manner  as  that  we 
could,  at  leasure,  and  critically,  inspect  their  behavior, 
we  might  find  no  gentleman,  and  no  lady;  for,  although 
excellent  specimens  of  courtesy  and  high-breeding  would 
gratify  us  in  the  assemblage,  in  the  particulars  we  should  15 
detect  offence;  because  elegance  comes  of  no  breeding, 
but  of  birth.  There  must  be  romance  of  character,  or 
the  most  fastidious  exclusion  of  impertinencies  will  not 
avail.  It  must  be  genius  which  takes  that  direction:  it 
must  be  not  courteous,  but  courtesy.  High  behavior  is  20 
as  rare  in  fiction,  as  it  is  in  fact.  Scott  is  praised  for  the 
fidelity  with  which  he  painted  the  demeanor  and  conver- 
sation of  the  superior  classes.  Certainly,  kings  and 
queens,  nobles  and  great  ladies,  had  some  right  to 
complain  of  the  absurdity  that  had  been  put  in  their  25 
mouths,  before  the  days  of  Waverley:  but  neither  does 
Scott's  dialogue  bear  criticism.  His  lords  brave  each 
other  in  smart  epigrammatic  speeches,  but  the  dialogue 
is  in  costume,  and  does  not  please  on  the  second  reading: 
it  is  not  warm  with  life.  In  Shakespeare  alone,  the  30 
speakers  do  not  strut  and  bridle,  the  dialogue  is  easily 
great,  and  he  is  the  best-bred  man  in  all  England,  in  all 
Christendom.  Once  or  twice,  in  real  life,  we  are  per- 
mitted to  enjoy  the  charm  of  noble  manners,  in  the 


236  •    Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

presence  of  a  man  or  woman  who  have  no  bar  in  their 
nature,  but  whose  character  emanates  freely  in  their  word 
and  gesture.  A  beautiful  form  is  better  than  a  beautiful 
face;  a  beautiful  behavior  is  better  than  a  beautiful 
5  form:  it  gives  a  higher  pleasure  than  statues  or  pictures; 
it  is  the  finest  of  the  fine  arts.  A  man  is  but  a  little  thing 
in  the  midst  of  the  objects  of  nature,  yet,  by  the  moral 
quality  radiating  from  his  countenance,  he  may  aboHsh 
all  considerations  of  magnitude,  and  in  his  manners 

10  equal  the  majesty  of  the  world.  I  have  seen  an  in- 
dividual, whose  manners,  though  wholly  within  the 
conventions  of  elegant  society,  were  never  learned  there, 
but  were  original  and  commanding,  and  held  out  protec- 
tion and  prosperity;  one  who  did  not  need  the  aid  of 

15  a  court-suit,  but  carried  the  holiday  in  his  eye;  who 
exhilarated  the  fancy  by  flinging  wide  the  doors  of  new 
modes  of  existence;  who  shook  off  the  captivity  of 
etiquette,  with  happy,  spirited  bearing,  good-natured  and 
free  as  Robin  Hood;  yet  with  the  port  of  an  emperor — • 

eo  if  need  be,  calm,  serious,  and  fit  to  stand  the  gaze  of 
millions. 

The  open  air  and  the  fields,  the  streets  and  public 
chambers,  are  the  places  where  man  executes  his  will; 
let  him  yield  or  divide  the  scepter  at  the  door  of  the 

25  house.  Woman,  with  her  instinct  of  behavior,  instantly 
detects  in  man  a  love  of  trifles,  any  coldness  or  imbecility, 
or,  in  short,  any  want  of  that  large,  flowing,  and  magnani- 
mous deportment,  which  is  indispensable  as  an  exterior 
in  the  hall.     Our  American  institutions  have  been  friendly 

30  to  her,  and,  at  this  moment,  I  esteem  it  a  chief  felicity  of 
this  country,  that  it  excels  in  women.  A  certain  awkward 
consciousness  of  inferiority  in  the  men,  may  give  rise  to 
the  new  chivalry  in  behalf  of  Women's  Rights.  Certainly 
let  her  be  as  much  better  placed  in  the  laws  and  in  social 


Manners  237 

forms,  as  the  most  zealous  reformer  can  ask,  but  I  con- 
fide so  entirely  in  her  inspiring  and  musical  nature,  that 
I  believe  only  herself  can  show  us  how  she  shall  be  served. 
The  wonderful  generosity  of  her  sentiments  raises  her  at 
times  into  heroical  and  godlike  regions,  and  verifies  the  5 
pictures  of  Minerva,  Juno,  or  Polymnia;  and,  by  the 
firmness  with  which  she  treads  her  upward  path,  she  con- 
vinces the  coarsest  calculators  that  another  road  exists, 
than  that  which  their  feet  know.  But  besides  those  who 
make  good  in  our  imagination  the  place  of  muses  and  of  10 
Delphic  Sybils,  are  there  not  women  who  fill  our  vase 
with  wine  and  roses  to  the  brim,  so  that  the  wine  runs 
over  and  fills  the  house  with  perfume;  who  inspire  us 
with  courtesy;  who  unloose  out  tongues,  and  we  speak; 
who  anoint  our  eyes,  and  we  see?  We  say  things  we  15 
never  thought  to  have  said;  for  once,  our  walls  of  habitual 
reserve  vanished,  and  left  us  at  large;  we  were  children 
playing  with  children  in  a  wide  field  of  flowers.  Steep 
us,  we  cried,  in  these  influences  for  days,  for  weeks,  and 
we  shall  be  sunny  poets,  and  will  write  out  in  many-  20 
colored  words  the  romance  that  you  are.  Was  it  Hafiz 
or  Firdousi  that  said  of  his  Persian,  Lilla,  she  was  an 
elemental  force,  and  astonished  me  by  her  amount  of 
life,  when  I  saw  her  day  after  day  radiating,  every  instant, 
redundant  joy  and  grace  on  all  around  her?  She  was  a  25 
solvent  powerful  to  reconcile  all  heterogeneous  persons 
into  one  society.  Like  air  or  water,  an  element  of  such 
a  great  range  of  affinities,  that  it  combines  readily  with  a 
thousand  substances.  Where  she  is  present,  all  others 
will  be  more  than  they  are  wont.  She  was  a  unit  and  30 
whole,  so  that  whatsoever  she  did,  became  her.  She  had 
too  much  sympathy  and  desire  to  please,  than  that  you 
could  say,  her  manners  were  marked  with  dignity,  yet  no 
princess  could  surpass  her  clear  and  direct  demeanor 


238  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

on  each  occasion.  She  did  not  study  the  Persian  gram- 
mar, nor  the  books  of  the  seven  poets,  but  all  the  poems 
of  the  seven  seemed  to  be  written  upon  her.  For,  though 
the  bias  of  her  nature  was  not  to  thought,  but  to  sym- 
5  pathy,  yet  was  she  so  perfect  in  her  own  nature,  as  to  meet 
intellectual  persons  by  the  fulness  of  her  heart,  warming 
them  by  her  sentiments;  believing,  as  she  did,  that  by 
dealing  nobly  with  all,  all  would  show  themselves  noble. 
I  know  that  this  Byzantine  pile  of  Chivalry  or  Fashion, 

10  which  seems  so  fair  and  picturesque  to  those  who  look 
at  the  contemporary  facts  for  science  or  for  entertain- 
ment, is  not  equally  pleasant  to  all  spectators.  The  con- 
stitution of  our  society  makes  it  a  giant's  castle  to  the 
ambitious  youth  who  have  not  found  their  names  en- 

15  rolled  in  its  Golden  Book,  and  whom  it  has  excluded  from 
its  coveted  honors  and  privileges.  They  have  yet  to 
learn  that  its  seeming  grandeur  is  shadowy  and  relative: 
it  is  great  by  their  allowance:  its  proudest  gates  will  fly 
open  at  the  approach  of  their  courage  and  virtue.     For 

20  the  present  distress,  however,  of  those  who  are  predis- 
posed to  suffer  from  the  tyrannies  of  this  caprice,  there 
are  easy  remedies.  To  remove  your  residence  a  couple 
of  miles,  or  at  most  four,  will  commonly  relieve  the  most 
extreme    susceptibility.     For,    the    advantages    which 

25  fashion  values,  are  plants,  which  thrive  in  very  confined 
localities,  in  a  few  streets,  namely.  Out  of  this  precinct, 
they  go  for  nothing;  are  of  no  use  in  the  farm,  in  the 
forest,  in  the  market,  in  war,  in  the  nuptial  society,  in 
the  literary  or  scientific  circle,  at  sea,  in  friendship,  in 

30  the  heaven  of  thought  or  virtue. 

But  we  have  lingered  long  enough  in  these  painted 
courts.  The  worth  of  the  thing  signified  must  vindicate 
our  taste  for  the  emblem.  Every  thing  that  is  called 
fashion  and  courtesy  humbles  itself  before  the  cause  and 


Manners  239 

fountain  of  honor,  creator  of  titles  and  dignities,  namely, 
the  great  heart  of  love.  This  is  the  royal  blood,  this  the 
fire,  which,  in  all  countries  and  contingencies,  will  work 
after  its  kind,  and  conquer  and  expand  all  that  ap- 
proaches it.  This  gives  new  meaning  to  every  fact.  5 
This  impoverishes  the  rich,  suffering  no  grandeur  but 
its  own.  What  is  rich?  Are  you  rich  enough  to  help 
anybody?  to  succor  the  unfashionable  and  the  eccentric? 
rich  enough  to  make  the  Canadian  in  his  wagon,  the 
itinerant  with  his  consul's  paper  which  commends  him  10 
"to  the  charitable,"  the  swarthy  Italian  with  his  few 
broken  words  of  English,  the  lame  pauper  hunted  by 
overseers  from  town  to  town,  even  the  poor  insane  be- 
sotted wreck  of  man  or  woman,  feel  the  noble  exception 
of  your  presence  and  your  house,  from  the  general  bleak-  15 
ness  and  stoniness;  to  make  such  feel  that  they  were 
greeted  with  a  voice  which  made  them  both  remember 
and  hope?  What  is  vulgar,  but  to  refuse  the  claim  on 
acute  and  conclusive  reasons?  What  is  gentle,  but  to 
allow  it,  and  give  their  heart  and  yours  one  holiday  from  20 
the  national  caution?  Without  the  rich  heart,  wealth 
is  an  ugly  beggar.  The  king  of  Schiraz  could  not  afford 
to  be  so  bountiful  as  the  poor  Osman  who  dwelt  at  his 
gate.  Osman  had  a  humanity  so  broad  and  deep,  that 
although  his  speech  was  so  bold  and  free  with  the  Koran,  25 
as  to  disgust  all  the  dervishes,  yet  was  there  never  a  poor 
outcast,  eccentric,  or  insane  man,  some  fool  who  had  cut 
off  his  beard,  or  who  had  been  mutilated  under  a  vow,  or 
had  a  pet  madness  in  his  brain,  but  fled  at  once  to  him, 
— that  great  heart  lay  there  so  sunny  and  hospitable  in  30 
the  center  of  the  country — that  it  seemed  as  if  the  in- 
stinct of  all  sufferers  drew  them  to  his  side.  And  the 
madness  which  he  harbored,  he  did  not  share.  Is  not 
this  to  be  rich?  this  only  to  be  rightly  rich? 


240  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 

But  I  shall  hear  without  pain,  that  I  play  the  courtier 
very  ill,  and  talk  of  that  which  I  do  not  well  understand. 
It  is  easy  to  see,  that  what  is  called  by  distinction  society 
and  fashion,  has  good  laws  as  well  as  bad,  has  much  that 
5  is  necessary,  and  much  that  is  absurd.  Too  good  for 
banning,  and  too  bad  for  blessing,  it  reminds  us  of  a 
tradition  of  the  pagan  mythology,  in  any  attempt  to 
settle  its  character.  "I  overheard  Jove,  one  day,"  said 
Silenus,  "talking  of  destroying  the  earth;  he  said  it  had 

10  failed;  they  were  all  rogues  and  vixens,  who  went  from 
bad  to  worse,  as  fast  as  the  days  succeeded  each  other. 
Minerva  said,  she  hoped  not;  they  were  only  ridiculous 
little  creatures,  with  this  odd  circumstance,  that  they  had 
a  blur,  or  indeterminate  aspect,  seen  far  or  seen  near:  if 

15  you  called  them  bad,  they  would  appear  so;  if  you  called 
them  good,  they  would  appear  so;  and  there  was  no  one 
person  or  action  among  them  which  would  not  puzzle 
her  owl,  much  more  all  Olympus,  to  know  whether  it 
was  fundamentally  bad  or  good." 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 

DN  A  CERTAIN  CONDESCENSION  IN 
FOREIGNERS^ 

Walking  one  day  toward  the  Village,  as  we  used  to 
call  it  in  the  good  old  days  when  almost  every  dweller 
in  the  town  had  been  born  in  it,  I  was  enjoying  that 
delicious  sense  of  disenthralment  from  the  actual  which 
the  deepening  twilight  brings  with  it,  giving  as  it  does  a  5 
sort  of  obscure  novelty  to  things  familiar.  The  coolness, 
the  hush,  broken  only  by  the  distant  bleat  of  some 
belated  goat,  querulous  to  be  disburthened  of  her  milky 
load,  the  few  faint  stars,  more  guessed  as  yet  than  seen, 
the  sense  that  the  coming  dark  would  so  soon  fold  me  in  the  10 
secure  privacy  of  its  disguise — all  things  combined  in  a 
result  as  near  absolute  peace  as  can  be  hoped  for  by  a 
man  who  knows  that  there  is  a  writ  out  against  him  in 
the  hands  of  the  printer's  devil.  For  the  moment,  I 
was  enjoying  the  blessed  privilege  of  thinking  without  15 
being  called  on  to  stand  and  deliver  what  I  thought 
to  the  small  public  who  are  good  enough  to  take  any 
interest  therein.  I  love  old  ways,  and  the  path  I  was 
walking  felt  kindly  to  the  feet  it  had  known  for  almost 
fifty  years.  How  many  fleeting  impressions  it  had  20 
shared  with  me!  How  many  times  I  had  lingered  to 
study  the  shadows  of  the  leaves  mezzotinted  upon  the 
turf  that  edged  it  by  the  moon,  of  the  bare  boughs  etched 

'  This  essay  is  included  by  special  arrangement  with  the  Hough- 
ton Mifflin  Company,  the  authorized  publishers  of  Lowell's  works. 

241 


242  James  Russell  Lowell 

with  a  touch  beyond  Rembrandt  by  the  same  unconscious 
artist  on  the  smooth  page  of  snow!  If  I  turned  round, 
through  dusky  tree-gaps  came  the  first  twinkle  of  even- 
ing lamps  in  the  dear  old  homestead.  On  Corey's  hill  I 
S  could  see  these  tiny  pharoses  of  love  and  home  and  sweet 
domestic  thoughts  flash  out  one  by  one  across  the  black- 
ening salt-meadow  between.  How  much  has  not  kero- 
sene added  to  the  cheerfulness  of  our  evening  landscape! 
A  pair  of  night-herons  flapped  heavily  over  me  toward  the 

10  hidden  river.  The  war  was  ended.  I  might  walk  town- 
ward  without  that  aching  dread  of  bulletins  that  had 
darkened  the  July  sunshine  and  twice  made  the  scarlet 
leaves  of  October  seem  stained  with  blood.  I  remem- 
bered with  a  pang,  half-proud,  half-painful,  how,  so  many 

15  years  ago  I  had  walked  over  the  same  path  and  felt 
round  my  finger  the  soft  pressure  of  a  little  hand  that 
was  one  day  to  harden  with  faithful  grip  of  saber.  On 
how  many  paths,  leading  to  how  many  homes  where 
proud  Memory  does  all  she  can  to  fill  up  the  fireside  gaps 

20  with  shining  shapes,  must  not  men  be  walking  in  just 
such  pensive  mood  as  I?  Ah,  young  heroes,  safe  in 
immortal  youth  as  those  of  Homer,  you  at  least  carried 
your  ideal  hence  untarnished!  It  is  locked  for  you 
beyond  moth  or  rust  in  the  treasure-chamber  of  Death. 

25  Is  not  a  country,  I  thought,  that  has  had  such  as  they 
in  it,  that  could  give  such  as  they  a  brave  joy  in  dying 
for  it,  worth  something,  then?  And  as  I  felt  more  and 
more  the  soothing  magic  of  evening's  cool  palm  upon  my 
temples,  as  my  fancy  came  home  from  its  reverie,  and  my 

30  senses,  with  reawakened  curiosity,  ran  to  the  front  win- 
dows again  from  the  viewless  closet  of  abstraction,  and 
felt  a  strange  charm  in  finding  the  old  tree  and  shabby 
fence  still  there  under  the  travesty  of  falling  night,  nay, 
were  conscious  of  an  unsuspected  newness  in  familiar 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    243 

stars  and  the  fading  outlines  of  hills  my  earliest  horizon, 
I  was  conscious  of  an  immortal  soul,  and  could  not  but 
rejoice  in  the  unwaning  goodliness  of  the  world  into  which 
I  had  been  born  without  any  merit  of  my  own.  I  thought 
of  dear  Henry  Vaughan's  rainbow,  "Still  young  and  5 
fine!"  I  remembered  people  who  had  to  go  over  to  the 
Alps  to  learn  what  the  divine  silence  of  snow  was,  who 
must  run  to  Italy  before  they  were  conscious  of  the  mir- 
acle wrought  every  day  under  their  very  noses  by  the 
sunset,  who  must  call  upon  the  Berkshire  hills  to  teach  10 
them  what  a  painter  autumn  was,  while  close  at  hand 
the  Fresh  Pond  meadows  made  all  oriels  cheap  with  hues 
that  showed  as  if  a  sunset-cloud  had  been  wrecked 
among  their  maples.  One  might  be  worse  off  than  even 
in  America,  I  thought.  There  are  some  things  so  elastic  15 
that  even  the  heavy  roller  of  democracy  cannot  flatten 
them  altogether  down.  The  mind  can  weave  itself 
warmly  in  the  cocoon  of  its  own  thoughts  and  dwell  a 
hermit  anywhere.  A  country  without  traditions,  with- 
out ennobling  associations,  a  scramble  of  parvenus,  wdth  20 
a  horrible  consciousness  of  shoddy  running  through 
politics,  manners,  art,  literature,  nay,  religion  itself?  I 
confess,  it  did  not  seem  so  to  me  there  in  that  illimitable 
quiet,  that  serene  self-possession  of  nature,  where  Collins 
might  have  brooded  his  "  Ode  to  Evening,"  or  where  those  25 
verses  on  Solitude  in  Dodsley's  Collection,  that  Haw- 
thorne liked  so  much,  might  have  been  composed. 
Traditions?  Granting  that  we  had  none,  all  that  is 
worth  having  in  them  is  the  common  property  of  the  soul 
—an  estate  in  gavelkind  for  all  the  sons  of  Adam — and,  30 
moreover,  if  a  man  cannot  stand  on  his  two  feet  (the 
prime  quality  of  whoever  has  left  any  tradition  behind 
him),  were  it  not  better  for  him  to  be  honest  about  it  at 
once,  and  go  down  on  all  fours?     And  for  associations, in 


244  James  Russell  Lowell 

one  have  not  the  wit  to  make  them  for  himself  out  of  his 
native  earth,  no  ready-made  ones  of  other  men  will 
avail  him  much.  Lexington  is  none  the  worse  to  me  for 
not  being  in  Greece,  nor  Gettysburg  that  its  name  is  not 
5  Marathon.  "Blessed  old  fields,"  I  was  just  exclaiming 
to  myself,  like  one  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  heroes,  "dear  acres, 
innocently  secure  from  history,  which  these  eyes  first 
beheld,  may  you  be  also  those  to  which  they  shall  at  last 
slowly   darken!"   when   I  was  interrupted  by  a  voice 

lo  which  asked  me  in  German  whether  I  was  the  Herr  Pro- 
fessor, Doctor,  So-and-so?  The  "  Doctor"  was  by  brevet 
or  vaticination,  to  make  the  grade  easier  to  my  pocket. 

One  feels  so  intimately  assured  that  he  is  made  up, 
in  part,  of  shreds  and  leavings  of  the  past,  in  part  of 

IS  the  interpolations  of  other  people,  that  an  honest  man 
would  be  slow  in  saying  yes  to  such  a  question.  But 
"my  name  is  So-and-so"  is  a  safe  answer,  and  I  gave  it. 
While  I  had  been  romancing  with  myself,  the  street- 
lamps  had  been  lighted,  and  it  was  under  one  of  these 

20  detectives  that  have  robbed  the  Old  Road  of  its  privilege 
of  sanctuary  after  nightfall  that  I  was  ambushed  by  my 
foe.  The  inexorable  villain  had  taken  my  description,  it 
appears,  that  I  might  have  the  less  chance  to  escape  him. 
Dr.  Holmes  tells  us  that  we  change  our  substance,  not 

25  every  seven  years,  as  was  once  believed,  but  with  every 
breath  we  draw.  Why  had  I  not  the  wit  to  avail  myself 
of  the  subterfuge,  and,  like  Peter,  to  renounce  my  iden- 
tity, especially,  as  in  certain  moods  of  mind,  I  have  often 
more  than  doubted  of  it  myself?     When  a  man  is,  as  it 

30  were,  his  own  front-door,  and  is  thus  knocked  at,  why 
may  he  not  assume  the  right  of  that  sacred  wood  to  make 
every  house  a  castle,  by  denying  himself  to  all  visitations? 
I  was  truly  not  at  home  when  the  question  was  put  to  me, 
but  had  to  recall  myself  from  all  out-of-doors,  and  to 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    245 

piece  my  self-consciousness  hastily  together  as  well  as 
I  could  before  I  answered  it. 

I  knew  perfectly  well  what  was  coming.  It  is  seldom 
that  debtors  or  good  Samaritans  waylay  people  under 
gas-lamps  in  order  to  force  money  upon  them,  so  far  as  I  5 
have  seen  or  heard.  I  was  also  aware,  from  considerable 
experience,  that  every  foreigner  is  persuaded  that,  by 
doing  this  country  the  favor  of  coming  to  it,  he  has  laid 
every  native  thereof  under  an  obligation,  pecuniary  or 
other,  as  the  case  may  be,  whose  discharge  he  is  entitled  10 
to  on  demand  duly  made  in  person  or  by  letter.  Too 
much  learning  (of  this  kind)  had  made  me  mad  in  the 
provincial  sense  of  the  word.  I  had  begun  life  with  the 
theory  of  giving  something  to  every  beggar  that  came 
along,  though  sure  of  never  finding  a  native-born  country-  15 
man  among  them.  In  a  small  way,  I  was  resolved 
to  emulate  Hatem  Tai's  tent,  with  its  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  entrances,  one  for  every  day  in  the  year — 
I  know  not  whether  he  was  astronomer  enough  to 
add  another  for  leap-years.  The  beggars  were  a  kind  of  20 
German-silver  aristocracy;  not  real  plate,  to  be  sure, 
but  better  than  nothing.  Where  everybody  was  over- 
worked, they  supplied  the  comfortable  equipoise  of 
absolute  leisure,  so  assthetically  needful.  Besides,  I 
was  but  too  conscious  of  a  vagrant  fiber  in  myself,  which  25 
too  often  thrilled  me  in  my  solitary  walks  with  the  temp- 
tation to  wander  on  into  infinite  space,  and  by  a  single 
spasm  of  resolution  to  emancipate  myself  from  the  drudg- 
ery of  prosaic  serfdom  to  respectability  and  the  regular 
course  of  things.  This  prompting  has  been  at  times  my  30 
familiar  demon,  and  I  could  not  but  feel  a  kind  of 
respectful  sympathy  for  men  who  had  dared  what  I  had 
only  sketched  out  to  myself  as  a  splendid  possibility. 
For  seven  years  I  helped  maintain  one  heroic  man  on  an 


246  James  Russell  Lowell 

imaginary  journey  to  Portland — as  fine  an  example  as 
I  have  ever  known  of  hopeless  loyalty  to  an  ideal.  I 
assisted  another  so  long  in  a  fruitless  attempt  to  reach 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  that  at  last  we  grinned  in  each 
5  other's  faces  when  we  met,  like  a  couple  of  augurs. 
He  was  possessed  by  this  harmless  mania  as  some  are  by 
the  North  Pole,  and  I  shall  never  forget  his  look  of  regret- 
ful compassion  (as  for  one  who  was  sacrificing  his  higher 
life  to  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt)  when  I  at  last  advised  hira 

10  somewhat  strenuously  to  go  to  the  D ,  whither  the 

road  was  so  much  traveled  that  he  could  not  miss  it. 
General  Banks,  in  his  noble  zeal  for  the  honor  of  his  coun- 
try, would  confer  on  the  Secretary  of  State  the  power 
of  imprisoning,  in  case  of  war,  all  these  seekers  of  the 

15  unattainable,  thus  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  annihilating 
the  single  poetic  element  in  our  humdrum  life.  Alas! 
not  everybody  has  the  genius  to  be  a  Bobbin-Boy,  or 
doubtless  all  these  also  would  have  chosen  that  more 
prosperous    line    of    life!     But    moralists,    sociologists, 

20  political  economists,  and  taxes  have  slowly  convinced  me 
that  my  beggarly  sympathies  were  a  sin  against  society. 
Especially  was  the  Buckle  doctrine  of  averages  (so 
fiattering  to  our  free-will)  persuasive  with  me;  for  as 
there  must  be  in  every  year  a  certain  number  who  would 

25  bestow  an  alms  on  these  abridged  editions  of  the  Wander- 
ing Jew,  the  withdrawal  of  my  quota  could  make  no 
possible  difference,  since  some  destined  proxy  must  always 
step  forward  to  fill  my  gap.  Just  so  many  misdirected 
letters  every  year  and   no  morel    Would  it   were   as 

30  easy  to  reckon  up  the  number  of  men  on  whose  backs 
fate  has  written  the  wrong  address,  so  that  they  arrive 
by  mistake  in  Congress  and  other  places  where  they 
do  not  belong!  May  not  these  wanderers  of  whom  I 
speak  have  been  sent  into  the  world  without  any  proper 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    247 

address  at  all  ?  Where  is  our  D cad-Letter  Office  for  such  ? 
And  if  wiser  social  a.rrangements  should  furnish  us 
with  something  of  the  sort,  fancy  (horrible  thought!) 
how  many  a  workingman's  friend  (a  kind  of  industry 
in  which  the  labor  is  light  and  the  wages  heavy)  would  $ 
be  sent  thither  because  not  called  for  in  the  office  where 
he  at  present  lies! 

But  I  am  leaving  my  new  acquaintance  too  long  under 
the  lamp-post.  The  same  Gano  which  had  betrayed  me 
to  him  revealed  to  me  a  well-set  young  man  of  about  10 
half  my  own  age,  as  well  dressed,  so  far  as  I  could  see, 
as  I  was,  and  with  ever}^  natural  qualification  for  getting 
his  own  livelihood  as  good,  if  not  better,  than  my  own. 
He  had  been  reduced  to  the  painful  necessity  of  calling 
upon  me  by  a  series  of  crosses  beginning  with  the  Baden  15 
Revolution  (for  which,  I  own,  he  seemed  rather  young 
• — ^but  perhaps  he  referred  to  a  kind  of  revolution  prac- 
tised every  season  at  Baden-Baden),  continued  by  re- 
peated failures  in  business,  for  amounts  w^hich  must 
convince  me  of  his  entire  respectability,  and  ending  with  20 
our  Civil  War.  During  the  latter,  he  had  served  with 
distinction  as  a  soldier,  taking  a  main  part  in  every  im- 
portant battle,  with  a  rapid  list  of  which  he  favored  me, 
and  no  doubt  would  have  admitted  that,  impartial  as 
Johnathan  Wild's  great  ancestor,  he  had  been  on  both  25 
sides,  had  I  baited  him  with  a  few  hints  of  conservative 
opinions  on  a  subject  so  distressing  to  a  gentleman  wish- 
ing to  profit  by  one's  sympathy  and  unhappily  doubtful 
as  to  which  way  it  might  lean.  For  all  these  reasons, 
and,  as  he  seemed  to  imply,  for  his  merit  in  consenting  30 
to  be  born  in  Germany,  he  considered  himself  my  natural 
creditor  to  the  extent  of  five  dollars,  which  he  woijld 
handsomely  consent  to  accept  in  greenbacks,  though  he 
preferred  specie.     The  offer  was  certainly    a  generous 


248  James  Russell  Lowell 

one,  and  tlie  claim  presented  with  an  assurance  that 
carried  conviction.  But,  unhappily,  I  had  been  led  to 
remark  a  curious  natural  phenomenon.  If  I  was  ever 
weak  enough  to  give  anything  to  a  petitioner  of  what- 
5  ever  nationality,  it  always  rained  decayed  compatriots 
of  his  for  a  month  after.  Post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc  may 
not  be  always  safe  logic,  but  here  I  seemed  to  perceive  a 
natural  connection  of  cause  and  effect.  Now,  a  few  days 
before  I  had  been  so  tickled  with  a  paper  (professedly 

10  written  by  a  benevolent  American  clergyman)  certifying 
that  the  bearer,  a  hard-working  German,  had  long 
"sofered  with  rheumatic  paints  in  his  limps,"  that,  after 
copying  the  passage  into  my  note-book,  I  thought  it  but 
fair  to  pay  a  trifling  honorariwn  to  the  author.     I  had 

IS  pulled  the  string  of  the  shower-bath!  It  had  been  run- 
ning shipwrecked  sailors  for  some  time,  but  forthwith  it 
began  to  pour  Teutons,  redolent  of  lager-bier.  I  could 
not  help  associating  the  apparition  of  my  new  friend 
with  this  series  of  otherwise  unaccountable  phenomena. 

20  I  accordingly  made  up  my  mind  to  deny  the  debt,  and 
modestly  did  so,  pleading  a  native  bias  toward  impecu- 
niosity  to  the  full  as  strong  as  his  own.  He  took  a  high 
tone  with  me  at  once,  such  as  an  honest  man  would 
naturally  take  with  a  confessed  repudiator.     He  even 

25  brought  down  his  proud  stomach  so  far  as  to  join  him- 
self to  me  for  the  rest  of  my  townward  walk,  that  he 
might  give  me  his  views  of  the  American  people,  and 
thus  inclusively  of  myself. 

I  know  not  whether  it  is  because  I  am  pigeon-livered 

30  and  lack  gall,  or  whether  it  is  from  an  overmastering 
sense  of  drollery,  but  I  am  apt  to  submit  to  such  bast- 
ings with  a  patience  which  afterward  surprises  me^ 
being  not  without  my  share  of  warmth  in  the  blood. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  I  so  often  meet  with  young  per. 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    249 

sons  who  know  vastly  more  than  I  do,  and  especially  with 
so  many  foreigners  whose  knowledge  of  this  country  is 
superior  to  my  own.  However  it  may  be,  I  listened  for 
some  time  with  tolerable  composure  as  my  self-appointed 
lecturer  gave  me  in  detail  his  opinions  of  my  country  5 
and  its  people.  America,  he  informed  me,  was  without 
arts,  science,  literature,  culture,  or  any  native  hope  of 
supplying  them.  We  were  a  people  wholly  given  to 
money-getting,  and  who,  having  got  it,  knew  no  other 
use  for  it  than  to  hold  it  fast.  I  am  fain  to  confess  that  10 
I  felt  a  sensible  itching  of  the  biceps,  and  that  my  fingers 
closed  with  such  a  grip  as  he  had  just  informed  me  was 
one  of  the  effects  of  our  unhappy  climate.  But  happen- 
ing just  then  to  be  where  I  could  avoid  temptation  by 
dodging  down  a  by-street,  I  hastily  left  him  to  finish  his  15 
diatribe  to  the  lamp-post,  which  could  stand  it  better 
than  I.  That  young  man  will  never  know  how  near 
he  came  to  being  assaulted  by  a  respectable  gentleman 
of  middle  age,  at  the  corner  of  Church  Street.  I  have 
never  felt  quite  satisfied  that  I  did  all  my  duty  by  him  20 
in  not  knocking  him  down.  But  perhaps  he  might  have 
knocked  me  down,  and  then? 

The  capacity  of  indignation  makes  an  essential  part 
of  the  outfit  of  every  honest  man,  but  I  am  inclined  to 
doubt  whether  he  is  a  wise  one  who  allows  himself  to  act  25 
upon  its  first  hints.  It  should  be  rather,  I  suspect,  a 
latent  heat  in  the  blood,  which  makes  itself  felt  in  char- 
acter, a  steady  reserve  for  the  brain,  warming  the  ovum 
of  thought  to  life,  rather  than  cooking  it  by  ar  too  hasty 
enthusiasm  in  reaching  the  boiling-point.  As  my  pulse  30 
gradually  fell  back  to  its  normal  beat,  I  reflected  that  I 
had  been  uncomfortably  near  making  a  fool  of  myself — 
a  handy  salve  of  euphuism  for  our  vanity,  though  it 
does  not  always  make  a  just  allowance  to  Nature  for  her 


250  James  Russell  Lowell 

share  in  the  business.  What  possible  claim  had  my 
Teutonic  friend  to  rob  me  of  my  composure?  I  am  not, 
I  think,  specially  thin-skinned  as  to  other  people's  opin- 
ions of  myself,  having,  as  I  conceive,  later  and  fuller 
5  intelligence  on  that  point  than  anybody  else  can  give 
me.  Life  is  continually  weighing  us  in  very  sensitive 
scales,  and  telling  every  one  of  us  precisely  what  his 
real  weight  is  to  the  last  grain  of  dust.  Whoever  at 
fifty  does  not  rate  himself  quite  as  low  as  most  of  his 

10  acquaintance  would  be  likely  to  put  him,  must  be  either 
a  fool  or  a  great  man,  and  I  humbly  disclaim  being  either. 
But  if  I  was  not  smarting  in  person  from  any  scattering 
shot  of  my  late  companion's  commination,  why  should 
I  grow  hot  at  any  implication  of  my  country  therein? 

15  Surely  her  shoulders  are  broad  enough,  if  yours  or  mine 
are  not,  to  bear  up  under  a  considerable  avalanche  of 
this  kind.  It  is  the  bit  of  truth  in  every  slander,  the 
hint  of  likeness  in  every  caricature,  that  makes  us  smart. 
"Art  thou  there,  old  Truepenny?"     How  did  your  blade 

20  know  its  way  so  well  to  that  one  loose  rivet  in  our  armor? 
I  wondered  whether  Americans  were  over-sensitive  in 
this  respect,  whether  they  were  more  touchy  than  other 
folks.  On  the  whole,  I  thought  we  were  not.  Plu- 
tarch, who  at  least  had  studied  philosophy,  if  he  had  not 

25  mastered  it,  could  not  stomach  something  Herodotus 
had  said  of  Bocotia,  and  devoted  an  essay  to  showing 
up  the  delightful  old  traveler's  malice  and  ill-breeding. 
French  editors  leave  out  of  Montaigne's  Travels  some 
remarks  of  his  about  France,  for  reasons  best  known 

30  to  themselves.  Pachydermatous  Deutschland,  covered 
with  trophies  from  every  field  of  letters,  still  winces 
under  that  question  which  Pere  Bouhours  put  two  cen- 
turies ago,  Si  wi  AUcmand  pent  etre  hel-esprit?  John 
Bull  grew  apoplectic  with  angry  amazement  at  the  auda- 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    251 

cious  persiflage  of  Puckler-Mviskau.  To  be  sure,  he  was 
a  prince — but  that  was  not  all  of  it,  for  a  chance  phrase 
of  gentle  Hawthorne  sent  a  spasm  through  all  the  jour- 
nals of  England.  Then  this  tenderness  is  not  peculiar 
to  us?  Console  yourself,  dear  man  and  brother,  what-  5 
ever  you  may  be  sure  of,  be  sure  at  least  of  this,  that 
you  are  dreadfully  like  other  people.  Himian  nature 
has  a  much  greater  genius  for  sameness  than  for  origi- 
nality, or  the  world  would  be  at  a  sad  pass  shortly.  The 
surprising  thing  is  that  men  have  such  a  taste  for  this  10 
somewhat  musty  flavor,  that  an  Englishman,  for  exam- 
ple, should  feel  himself  defrauded,  nay,  even  outraged, 
when  he  comes  over  here  and  finds  a  people  speaking 
what  he  admits  to  be  something  like  English,  and  yet 
so  very  different  from  (or,  as  he  would  say,  to)  those  15 
he  left  at  home.  Nothing,  I  am  sure,  equals  my  thank- 
fulness when  I  meet  an  Englishman  who  is  not  like 
every  other,  or,  I  may  add,  an  American  of  the  same 
odd  turn. 

Certainly  it  is  no  shame  to  a  man  that  he  should  be  20 
as  nice  about  his  country  as  about  his  sweetheart,  and 
who  ever  heard  even  the  friendliest  appreciation  of  that 
unexpressive  she  that  did  not  seem  to  fall  infinitely 
short?     Yet  it  would  hardly  be  wise  to  hold  every  one 
an  enemy  who  could  not  see  her  with  our  own  enchanted  25 
eyes.     It  seems  to  be  the  common  opinion  of  foreigners 
that  Americans  are  too  tender  upon  this  point.     Per- 
haps we  are;  and  if  so,  there  must  be  a  reason  for  it. 
Have  we  had  fair  play?     Could  the  eyes  of  what  is 
called  Good  Society  (though  it  is  so  seldom  true  either  to  30 
the  adjective  or  noun)  look  upon  a  nation  of  democrats 
with   any  chance  of  receiving   an  undistorted  image? 
Were  not  those,  moreover,  who  found  in  the  old  order 
of  things  an  earthly  paradise,  paying  them  quarterly 


252  James  Russell  Lowell 

dividends  for  the  wisdom  of  their  ancestors,  with  the 
punctuality  of  the  seasons,  unconsciously  bribed  to  mis- 
understand if  not  to  misrepresent  us?  Whether  at  war 
or  at  peace,  there  we  were,  a  standing  menace  to  all 
5  earthly  paradises  of  that  kind,  fatal  underminers  of  the 
very  credit  on  which  the  dividends  were  based,  all  the 
more  hateful  and  terrible  that  our  destructive  agency  was 
so  insidious,  working  invisible  in  the  elements,  as  it 
seemed,  active  while  they  slept,  and  coming  upon  them 

10  in  the  darkness  like  an  armed  man.  Could  Laius  have 
the  proper  feelings  of  a  father  toward  CEdipus,  announced 
as  his  destined  destroyer  by  infallible  oracles,  and  felt  to 
be  such  by  every  conscious  fiber  of  his  soul?  For  more 
than  a  century  the  Dutch  were  the  laughing-stock  of 

15  polite  Europe.  They  were  butter-firkins,  swillers  of  beer 
and  schnaps,  and  their  vrouws  from  whom  Holbein 
painted  the  ail-but  loveliest  of  Madonnas,  Rembrandt 
the  graceful  girl  who  sits  immortal  on  his  knee  in  Dresden, 
and  Rubens  his  abounding  goddesses,  were  the  syno- 

20  nyms  of  clumsy  vulgarity.  Even  so  late  as  Irving  the 
ships  of  the  greatest  navigators  in  the  world  were  repre- 
sented as  sailing  equally  well  stern-foremost.  That  the 
aristocratic  Venetians  should  have 

"Riveted  with  gigantic  piles 
25  Thorough  the  center  their  new-catched  miles," 

was  heroic.  But  the  far  more  marvelous  achievement 
of  the  Dutch  in  the  same  kind  was  ludicrous  even  to  re- 
publican Marvell.  Meanwhile,  during  that  very  century 
30  of  scorn,  they  were  the  best  artists,  sailors,  merchants, 
bankers,  printers,  scholars,  jurisconsults,  and  statesmen 
in  Europe,  and  the  genius  of  Motley  has  revealed  them 
to  us,  earning  a  right  to  themselves  by  the  most  heroic 
Struggle  in  human  annals.     But,  alas!  they  were  not 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    253 

merely  simple  burghers  who  had  fairly  made  themselves 
High  Mightinesses,  and  could  treat  on  equal  terms  with 
anointed  kings,  but  their  commonwealth  carried  in  its 
bosom  the  germs  of  democracy.  They  even  unmuzzled, 
at  least  after  dark,  that  dreadful  mastiff,  the  Press,  whose  5 
scent  is,  or  ought  to  be,  so  keen  for  wolves  in  sheep's 
clothing  and  for  certain  other  animals  in  lions'  skins. 
They  made  fun  of  Sacred  Majesty,  and,  what  was  worse, 
managed  uncommonly  well  without  it.  In  an  age  when 
periwigs  made  so  large  a  part  of  the  natural  dignity  of  10 
man,  people  with  such  a  turn  of  mind  were  dangerous. 
How  could  they  seem  other  than  vulgar  and  hateful  ? 

In  the  natural  course  of  things  we  succeeded  to  this  un- 
enviable position  of  general  butt.  The  Dutch  had  thriven 
under  it  pretty  well,  and  there  was  hope  that  we  could  15 
at  least  contrive  to  worry  along.  And  we  certainly  did 
in  a  very  redoubtable  fashion.  Perhaps  we  deserved 
some  of  the  sarcasm  more  than  our  Dutch  predecessors 
in  office.  We  had  nothing  to  boast  of  in  arts  or  letters, 
and  were  given  to  bragging  overmuch  of  our  merely  ma-  20 
terial  prosperity,  due  quite  as  much  to  the  virtue  of  our 
continent  as  to  our  own.  There  was  some  truth  in  Car- 
lyle's  sneer,  after  all.  Till  we  had  succeeded  in  some 
higher  way  than  this,  we  had  only  the  success  of  physical 
growth.  Our  greatness,  like  that  of  enormous  Russia,  25 
was  greatness  on  the  map — barbarian  mass  only;  but 
had  we  gone  down,  like  that  other  Atlantis,  in  some  vast 
cataclysm,  we  should  have  covered  but  a  pin's  point  on 
the  chart  of  memory,  compared  with  those  ideal  spaces 
occupied  by  tiny  Attica  and  cramped  England.  At  the  30 
same  time,  our  critics  somewhat  too  easily  forgot  that 
material  must  make  ready  the  foundation  for  ideal  tri- 
umphs, that  the  arts  have  no  chance  in  poor  countries. 
But  it  must  be  allowed  that  democracy  stood  for  a  great 


254  James  Russell  Lowell 

deal  in  our  shortcoming.  The  Edinburgh  Review  never 
would  have  thought  of  asking,  "Who  reads  a  Russian 
book?"  and  England  was  satisfied  with  iron  from  Sweden 
without  being  impertinently  inquisitive  after  her  painters 
5  and  statuaries.  Was  it  that  they  expected  too  much 
from  the  mere  miracle  of  Freedom?  Is  it  not  the  highest 
art  of  a  republic  to  make  men  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  not 
the  marble  ideals  of  such?  It  may  be  fairly  doubted 
whether  we  have  produced  this  higher  t}T:>e  of  man  yet. 

lo  Perhaps  it  is  the  collective,  not  the  individual,  humanity 
that  is  to  have  a  chance  of  nobler  development  among  us. 
We  shall  see.  We  have  a  vast  amount  of  imported  ig- 
norance, and,  still  worse,  of  native  ready-made  knowl- 
edge, to  digest  before  even  the  preliminaries  of  such  a 

15  consummation  can  be  arranged.  We  have  got  to  learn 
that  statesmanship  is  the  most  complicated  of  all  arts, 
and  to  come  back  to  the  apprenticeship-system  too  has- 
tily abandoned.  At  present,  we  trust  a  man  with  mak- 
ing constitutions  on  less  proof  of  competence  than  we 

20  should  demand  before  we  gave  him  our  shoe  to  patch.  We 
have  nearly  reached  the  limit  of  the  reaction  from  the  old 
notion,  which  paid  too  much  regard  to  birth  and  station 
as  qualifications  for  oilnce,  and  have  touched  the  extreme 
point  in  the  opposite  direction,  putting  the  highest  of 

25  human  functions  up  at  auction  to  be  bid  for  by  any  crea- 
ture capable  of  going  upright  on  two  legs.  In  some  places, 
we  have  arrived  at  a  point  at  which  civil  society  is  no 
longer  possible,  and  already  another  reaction  has  begun, 
not  backward  to  the  old  system,  but  toward  fitness 

30  either  from  natural  aptitude  or  special  training.  But  will 
it  always  be  safe  to  let  evils  work  their  own  cure  by  be- 
coming unendurable?  Every  one  of  them  leaves  its  taint 
in  the  constitution  of  the  body-politic,  each  in  itself, 
perhaps,  trifling,  yet  all  together  powerful  for  evil. 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    255 

But  whatever  we  might  do  or  leave  undone,  we  were 
not  genteel,  and  it  was  uncomfortable  to  be  continually- 
reminded  that,  though  we  should  boast  that  we  were  the 
Great  West  till  we  were  black  in  the  face,  it  did  not  bring 
us  an  inch  nearer  to  the  world's  West-End.  That  sacred  5 
enclosure  of  respectability  was  tabooed  to  us.  The  Holy 
Alliance  did  not  inscribe  us  on  its  visiting-list.  The  Old 
World  of  wigs  and  orders  and  liveries  would  shop  with 
us,  but  we  must  ring  at  the  area-bell,  and  not  venture  to 
awaken  the  more  august  clamors  of  the  knocker.  Our  ic 
manners,  it  must  be  granted,  had  none  of  those  graces  that 
stamp  the  caste  of  Vere  de  Vere,  in  whatever  museum  of 
British  antiquities  they  may  be  hidden.  In  short,  we 
were  vulgar. 

This  was  one  of  those  horribly  vague  accusations,  the  15 
victim  of  which  has  no  defense.     An  umbrella  is  cf  no 
avail  against  a  Scotch  mist.     It  envelops  you,  it  pene- 
trates at  every  pore,  it  wets  you  through  without  seem- 
ing to  w^et  you  at  all.     Vulgarity  is  an  eighth  deadly  sin, 
added  to  the  list  in  these  latter  days,  and  worse  than  all  20 
the  others  put  together,  since  it  perils  your  salvation  in 
this  world — far  the  more  important  of  the  two  in  the 
minds  of  most  men.     It  profits  nothing  to  draw  nice  dis- 
tinctions between  essential  and  conventional,   for  the 
convention  in  this  case  is  the  essence,  and  you  may  break  25 
every  command  of  the  decalogue  with  perfect  good-breed- 
ing, nay,  if  you  are  adroit,  without  losing  caste.     We, 
indeed,  had  it  not  to  lose,  for  we  had  never  gained  it. 
"//ow  am  I  vulgar?"   asks  the  culprit,   shudderingly. 
''Because  thou  art  not  like  unto  Us,"  answers  Lucifer,  30 
Son  of  the  Morning,  and  there  is  no  more  to  be  said. 
The  god  of  this  world  may  be  a  fallen  angel,  but  he  has 
us  tliere!    We  were  as  clean — so  far  as  my  observation 
goes,  I  think  we  were  cleaner,  morally  and  physically, 


256  James  Russell  Lowell 

than  the  English,  and  therefore,  of  course,  than  every- 
body else.  But  we  did  not  pronounce  the  diphthong  ou 
as  they  did,  and  we  said  eether  and  not  eyther,  following 
therein  the  fashion  of  our  ancestors,  who  unhappily  could 
5  bring  over  no  English  better  than  Shakespeare's;  and  we 
did  not  stammer  as  they  had  learned  to  do  from  the 
courtiers,  who  in  this  way  flattered  the  Hanoverian  king, 
a  foreigner  among  the  people  he  had  come  to  reign  over. 
Worse  than  all,  we  might  have  the  noblest  ideas  and  the 

10  finest  sentiments  in  the  world,  but  we  vented  them 
through  that  organ  by  which  men  are  led  rather  than 
leaders,  though  some  physiologists  would  persuade  us 
that  Nature  furnishes  her  captains  with  a  fine  handle  to 
their  faces  that  Opportunity  may  get  a  good  purchase  on 

1 5  them  for  dragging  them  to  the  front. 

This  state  of  things  was  so  painful  that  excellent 
people  were  not  wanting  who  gave  their  whole  genius  to 
reproducing  here  the  original  Bull,  whether  by  gaiters, 
the  cut  of  their  whiskers,  by  a  factitious  brutality  in 

20  their  tone,  or  by  an  accent  that  was  forever  tripping  and 
falling  flat  over  the  tangled  roots  of  our  common  tongue. 
Martyrs  to  a  false  ideal,  it  never  occurred  to  them  that 
nothing  is  more  hateful  to  gods  and  men  than  a  second- 
rate  Englishman,  and  for  the  very  reason  that  this  planet 

25  never  produced  a  more  splendid  creature  than  the  first- 
rate  one,  witness  Shakespeare  and  the  Indian  Mutiny. 
Witness  that  truly  sublime  self-abnegation  of  those 
prisoners  lately  among  the  bandits  of  Greece,  where  aver- 
age men  gave  an  example  of  quiet  fortitude  for  which  all 

30  the  stoicism  of  antiquity  can  show  no  match.  If  we 
could  contrive  to  be  not  too  unobtrusively  our  simple 
selves,  we  should  be  the  most  delightful  of  human  beings, 
and  the  most  original;  whereas,  when  the  plating 
of  Anglicism  rubs  off,  as  it  always  will  in  points  that 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    257 

come  to  much  wear,  we  are  liable  to  very  unpleasing 
conjectures  about  the  quality  of  the  metal  underneath. 
Perhaps  one  reason  why  the  average  Briton  spreads  him- 
self here  with  such  an  easy  air  of  superiority  may  be  owing 
to  the  fact  that  he  meets  with  so  many  bad  imitations  5 
as  to  conclude  himself  the  only  real  thing  in  a  wilderness 
of  shams.  He  fancies  himself  moving  through  an  end- 
less Bloomsbury,  where  his  mere  apparition  confers  honor 
as  an  avatar  of  the  court-end  of  the  universe.  Not  a 
Bull  of  them  all  but  is  persuaded  he  bears  Europa  10 
upon  his  back.  This  is  the  sort  of  fellow  whose  patron- 
age is  so  divertingly  insufferable.  Thank  Heaven  he  is 
not  the  only  specimen  of  cater-cousinship  from  the  dear 
old  Mother  Island  that  is  shown  to  us!  Among  genuine 
things,  I  know  nothing  more  genuine  than  the  better  15 
men  whose  limbs  were  made  in  England.  So  manly- 
tender,  so  brave,  so  true,  so  warranted  to  wear,  they 
make  us  proud  to  feel  that  blood  is  thicker  than 
water. 

But  it  is  not  merely  the  Englishman;  every  European  20 
candidly  admits  in  himself  some  right  of  primogeniture 
in  respect  to  us,  and  pats  this  shaggy  continent  on  the 
back  with  a  lively  sense  of  generous  unbending.     The 
German  who  plays  the  bass-viol  has  a  well-founded  con- 
tempt, which  he  is  not  always  nice  in  concealing,  for  a  25 
country  so  few  of  whose  children  ever  take  that  noble 
instrument  between  their  knees.     His  cousin,  the  Ph. 
D.  from  Gottingen,  cannot  help  despising  a  people  who 
do  not  grow  loud  and  red  over  Aryans  and  Turanians,  and 
are  indifferent  about  their  descent  from  either.     The  3c 
Frenchman  feels  an  easy  mastery  in  speaking  his  mother 
tongue,  and  attributes  it  to  some  native  superiority  of 
parts  that  lifts  him  high  above  us  barbarians  of  the 
West.     The  Italian  prima  donna  sweeps  a  courtesy  of 


258  James  Russell  Lowell 

careless  pity  to  the  over-facile  pit  which  unsexes  her 
with  the  bravo!  innocently  meant  to  show  a  familiarity 
with  foreign  usage.  But  all  without  exception  make  no 
secret  of  regarding  us  as  the  goose  bound  to  deliver 
5  them  a  golden  egg  in  return  for  their  cackle.  Such 
men  as  Agassiz,  Guyot,  and  Goldwin  Smith  come  with 
gifts  in  their  hands;  but  since  it  is  commonly  European 
failures  who  bring  hither  their  remarkable  gifts  and 
acquirements,  this  view  of  the  case  is  sometimes  just 

10  the  least  bit  in  the  world  provoking.  To  think  what 
a  delicious  seclusion  of  contempt  we  enjoyed  till  Califor- 
nia and  our  own  ostentatious  parvenus,  flinging  gold 
away  in  Europe  that  might  have  endowed  libraries  at 
home,  gave  us  the  ill  repute  of  riches!     What  a  shabby 

IS  downfall  from  the  Arcadia  which  the  French  officers  of 
our  Revolutionary  War  fancied  they  saw  here  through 
Rousseau-tinted  spectacles !  Something  of  Arcadia  there 
really  was,  something  of  the  Old  Age;  and  that  divine 
provincialism  were  cheaply  repurchased  could  we  have 

20  it  back  again  in  exchange  for  the  tawdry  upholstery 
that  has  taken  its  place. 

For  some  reason  or  other,  the  European  has  rarely 
been  able  to  see  America  except  in  caricature.  Would 
the  first  Review  of  the  world  have  printed  the  nlaiseries 

25  of  Mr.  Maurice  Sand  as  a  picture  of  society  in  any  civil- 
ized country-?  Mr,  Sand,  to  be  sure,  has  inherited 
nothing  of  his  famous  mother's  literary  outfit,  except 
the  pseudonyme.  But  since  the  conductors  of  the 
Revue  could  not  have  published  his  story  because  it  was 

30  clever,  they  must  have  thought  it  valuable  for  its  truth. 
As  true  as  the  last-century  Englishman's  picture  of  Jean 
Crapaud!  We  do  not  ask  to  be  sprinkled  with  rose- 
water,  but  may  perhaps  fairly  protest  against  being 
drenched  with  the  rinsings  of  an  unclean  imagination. 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    259 

The  next  time  the  Revue  allows  such  ill-bred  persons  to 
throw  their  slops  out  of  its  first-floor  windows,  let  it 
honestly  preface  the  discharge  with  a  gare  de  Veau!  that 
we  may  run  from  under  in  season.  And  Mr.  Duvergier 
d'Hauranne,  who  knows  how  to  be  entertaining!  I  5 
know  le  Franqais  est  phitot  indiscret  que  confiant,  and  the 
pen  slides  too  easily  when  indiscretions  will  fetch  so 
much  a  page;  but  should  we  not  have  been  tant-soU-peu 
more  cautious  had  we  been  writing  about  people  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Channel?  But  then  it  is  a  fact  in  the  10 
natural  history  of  the  American  long  familiar  to  Euro- 
peans, that  he  abhors  privacy,  knows  not  the  meaning 
of  reserve,  lives  in  hotels  because  of  their  greater  pub- 
licity, and  is  never  so  pleased  as  when  his  domestic 
affairs  (if  he  may  be  said  to  have  any)  are  paraded  in  15 
the  newspapers.  Barnum,  it  is  well  known,  represents 
perfectly  the  average  national  sentiment  in  this  respect. 
However  it  be,  we  are  not  treated  like  other  people,  or 
perhaps  I  should  say  like  people  who  are  ever  likely  to 
be  met  with  in  society.  20 

Is  it  in  the  climate?  Either  I  have  a  false  notion  of 
European  manners,  or  else  the  atmosphere  affects  them 
strangely  when  exported  hither.  Perhaps  they  suffer 
from  the  sea-voyage  like  some  of  the  more  delicate 
wines.  During  our  Civil  War  an  English  gentleman  of  25 
the  highest  description  was  kind  enough  to  call  upon 
me,  mainly,  as  it  seemed,  to  inform  me  how  entirely 
he  sympathized  with  the  Confederates,  and  how  sure  he 
felt  that  we  could  never  subdue  them — "they  were 
the  gentlemen  of  the  country,  you  know."  Another,  the  30 
first  greetings  hardly  over,  asked  me  how  I  accounted 
for  the  universal  meagerness  of  my  countrymen.  To  a 
thinner  man  than  I,  or  from  a  stouter  man  than  he,  the 
question  might  have  been  offensive.     The  Marquis  of 


26o  James  Russell  Lowell 

Hartington^  wore  a  secession  badge  at  a  public  ball  in 
New  York.  In  a  civilized  country  he  might  have  been 
roughly  handled;  but  here,  where  the  bienseances  are 
not  so  well  understood,  of  course  nobody  minded  it.  A 
5  French  traveler  told  me  he  had  been  a  good  deal  in  the 
British  colonies,  and  had  been  astonished  to  see  how 
soon  the  people  became  Americanized.  He  added,  with 
delightful  bonhomie,  and  as  if  he  were  sure  it  would 
charm  me,  that  "they  even  began  to  talk  through  their 

lo  noses,  just  like  you!"  I  was  naturally  ravished  with 
this  testimony  to  the  assimilating  power  of  democracy, 
and  could  only  reply  that  I  hoped  they  would  never 
adopt  our  democratic  patent-method  of  seeming  to  settle 
one's  honest  debts,  for  they  would  find  it  paying  through 

IS  the  nose  in  the  long  run.  I  am  a  man  of  the  New 
World,  and  do  not  know  precisely  the  present  fashion  of 
May-Fair,  but  I  have  a  kind  of  feeling  that  if  an  Ameri- 
can {mutato  nomine,  de  te  is  always  frightfully  possible) 
were  to  do  this  kind  of  thing  under  a  European  roof,  it 

20  would  induce  some  disagreeable  reflections  as  to  the 
ethical  results  of  democracy.  I  read  the  other  day  in 
print  the  remark  of  a  British  tourist  who  had  eaten 
large  quantities  of  our  salt,  such  as  it  is  (I  grant  it  has 
not   the   European   savor),   that   the   Americans   were 

25  hospitable,  no  doubt,  but  that  it  was  partly  because  they 

longed  for  foreign  visitors  to  relieve  the  tedium  of  their 

dead-level  existence,  and  partly  from  ostentation.     What 

shall  we  do?     Shall  we  close  our  doors?     Not  I,  for  one^ 

'  One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  neatest  strokes  of  humor  was  his  treatment 
of  this  gentleman  when  a  laudable  curiosity  induced  him  to  be  pre- 
sented to  the  President  of  the  Broken  Bubble.  JMr.  Lincoln  f)cr- 
sisted  in  ca'lHng  him  jMr.  Partington.  Surely  the  refinement  of 
good-breeding  could  go  no  further.  Giving  the  yovmg  man  his 
real  name  (already  notorious  in  the  newspapers)  would  have  made 
his  visit  an  insult.  Had  Henri  IV.  done  this,  it  wou'd  have  been 
famous. 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    261 

if  I  should  so  have  forfeited  the  friendship  of  L.  S.,  most 
lovable  of  men.  He  somehow  seems  to  find  us  human, 
at  least,  and  so  did  Clough,  whose  poetry  will  one  of 
these  days,  perhaps,  be  found  to  have  been  the  best 
utterance  in  verse  of  this  generation.  And  T.  H.  the  5 
mere  grasp  of  whose  manly  hand  carries  with  it  the 
pledge  of  frankness  and  friendship,  of  an  abiding  sim- 
plicity of  nature  as  affecting  as  it  is  rare! 

The  fine  old  Tory  aversion  of  former  times  was  not 
hard  to  bear.  There  was  something  even  refreshing  in  10 
it,  as  in  a  northeaster  to  a  hardy  temperament.  When 
a  British  parson,  traveling  in  Newfoundland  while  the 
slash  of  our  separation  was  still  raw,  after  prophesying  a 
glorious  future  for  an  island  that  continued  to  dry  its 
fish  under  the  aegis  of  Saint  George,  glances  disdainfully  15 
over  his  spectacles  in  parting  at  the  U.  S.  A.,  and  fore- 
bodes for  them  a  "speedy  relapse  into  barbarism,"  now 
that  they  have  madly  cut  themselves  off  from  the 
humanizing  influences  of  Britain,  I  smile  with  barbarian 
self-conceit.  But  this  kind  of  thing  became  by  degrees  20 
an  unpleasant  anachronism.  For  meanwhile  the  young 
giant  was  growing,  was  beginning  indeed  to  feel  tight  in 
his  clothes,  was  obliged  to  let  in  a  gore  here  and  there 
in  Texas,  in  California,  in  New  Mexico,  in  Alaska,  and 
had  the  scissors  and  needle  and  thread  ready  for  Can-  25 
ada  when  the  time  came.  His  shadow  loomed  like  a 
Brocken-specter  over  against  Europe — the  shadow  of 
what  they  were  coming  to,  that  was  the  unpleasant  part 
of  it.  Even  in  such  misty  image  as  they  had  of  him,  it 
was  painfully  evident  that  his  clothes  were  not  of  any  30 
cut  hitherto  fashionable,  nor  conceivable  by  a  Bond 
Street  tailor — and  this  in  an  age,  too,  when  everything 
depends  upon  clothes,  when,  if  we  do  not  keep  up  ap- 
pearances, the  seeming-solid  frame  of  this  universe,  nay, 


262  James  Russell  Lowell 

your  very  God,  would  slump  into  himself,  like  a  mockery 
king  of  snow,  being  nothing,  after  all,  but  a  prevailing 
mode.  From  this  moment  the  young  giant  assumed  the 
respectable  aspect  of  a  phenomenon,  to  be  got  rid  of  if 
5  possible,  but  at  any  rate  as  legitimate  a  subject  of  human 
study  as  the  glacial  period  or  the  silurian  what-d'ye-call- 
ems.  If  the  man  of  the  primeval  drift-heaps  is  so  ab- 
sorbingly interesting,  w^hy  not  the  man  of  the  drift  that 
is  just  beginning,  of  the  drift  into  whose  irresistible  cur- 
io rent  we  are  just  being  sucked  whether  we  will  or  no?  If 
I  were  in  their  place,  I  confess  I  should  not  be  fright- 
ened. Man  has  survived  so  much,  and  contrived  to  be 
comfortable  on  this  planet  after  surviving  so  much!  I 
am  something  of  a  protestant  in  matters  of  government 
15  also,  and  am  willing  to  get  rid  of  vestments  and  cere- 
monies and  to  come  down  to  bare  benches,  if  only  faith 
in  God  take  the  place  of  a  general  agreement  to  profess 
confidence  in  ritual  and  sham.  Every  mortal  man  of  us 
holds  stock  in  the  only  public  debt  that  is  absolutely 
20  sure  of  payment,  and  that  is  the  debt  of  the  Maker  of 
this  Universe  to  the  Universe  he  has  made.  I  have  no 
notion  of  selling  out  my  stock  in  a  panic. 

It  was  something  to  have  advanced  even  to  the  dignity 
of  a  phenomenon,  and  yet  I  do  not  know  that  the  rela- 
25  tion  of  the  individual  American  to  the  individual  Euro- 
pean was  bettered  by  it;  and  that,  after  all,  must  adjust 
itself  comfortably  before  there  can  be  a  right  under- 
standing between  the  two.  We  had  been  a  desert,  we 
became  a  museum.  People  came  hither  for  scientific 
30  and  not  social  ends.  The  very  cockney  could  not  com- 
plete his  education  without  taking  a  vacant  stare  at  us 
in  passing.  But  the  sociologists  (I  think  they  call  them- 
selves so)  were  the  hardest  to  bear.  There  was  no  es- 
cape.    I  have  even  known  a  professor  of  this  fearful 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    263 

science  to  come  disguised  in  petticoats.  We  were  cross- 
examined  as  a  chemist  cross-examines  a  new  substance. 
Human?  yes,  all  the  elements  are  present,  though  ab- 
normally combined.  Civilized?  Hm!  that  needs  a 
stricter  assay.  No  entomologist  could  take  a  more  5 
friendly  interest  in  a  strange  bug.  After  a  few  such  ex- 
periences, I,  for  one,  have  felt  as  if  I  were  merely  one  of 
those  horrid  things  preserved  in  spirits  (and  very  bad 
spirits  too)  in  a  cabinet.  I  Svas  not  the  fellow-being  of 
these  explorers:  I  was  a  curiosity;  I  was  a  specimen,  ic 
Hath  not  an  American  organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affec- 
tions, passions  even  as  a  European  hath?  If  you  prick 
us,  do  we  not  bleed?  If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh? 
I  will  not  keep  on  with  Shylock  to  his  next  question  but 
one.  15 

Till  after  our  Civil  War  it  never  seemed  to  enter  the 
head  of  any  foreigner,  especially  of  any  Englishman,  that 
an  American  had  what  could  be  called  a  country,  except 
as  a  place  to  eat,  sleep,  and  trade  in.  Then  it  seemed  to 
strike  them  suddenly.  ''By  Jove,  you  know,  fellahs  20 
don't  fight  like  that  for  a  shop-till!"  No,  I  rather  think 
not.  To  Americans  America  is  something  more  than  a 
promise  and  an  expectation.  It  has  a  past  and  tradi- 
tions of  its  own.  A  descent  from  men  who  sacrificed 
everything  and  came  hither,  not  to  better  their  fortunes,  25 
but  to  plant  their  idea  in  virgin  soil,  should  be  a  good 
pedigree.  There  was  never  colony  save  this  that  went 
forth,  not  to  seek  gold,  but  God.  Is  it  not  as  well  to 
have  sprung  from  such  as  these  as  from  some  burly 
beggar  who  came  over  with  Wilhelmus  Conquestor,  un-  30 
less,  indeed,  a  line  grow  better  as  it  runs  farther  away 
from  stalwart  ancestors?  And  for  history,  it  is  dry 
enough,  no  doubt,  in  the  books,  but,  for  all  that,  is  of  a 
kind  that  tells  in  the  blood.     I  have  admitted  that  Car- 


264  James  Russell  Lowell 

lyle's  sneer  had  a  show  of  truth  in  it.  But  what  does 
he  himself,  like  a  true  Scot,  admire  in  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns?  First  of  all,  that  they  were  canny,  a  thrifty, 
forehanded  race.  Next,  that  they  made  a  good  fight 
5  from  generation  to  generation  with  the  chaos  around 
them.  That  is  precisely  the  battle  which  the  English 
race  on  this  continent  has  been  carrying  doughtily  on  for 
two  centuries  and  a  half.  Doughtily  and  silently,  for 
you  cannot  hear  in  Europe  "that  crash,  the  death-song 

ID  of  the  perfect  tree,"  that  has  been  going  on  here  from 
sturdy  father  to  sturdy  son,  and  making  this  continent 
habitable  for  the  weaker  Old  World  breed  that  has 
swarmed  to  it  during  the  last  half-century.  If  ever  men 
did  a  good  stroke  of  work  on  this  planet,  it  was  the  fore- 

15  fathers  of  those  whom  you  are  wondering  whether  it 
would  not  be  prudent  to  acknowledge  as  far-off  cousins. 
Alas,  man  of  genius,  to  whom  we  owe  so  much,  could 
you  see  nothing  more  than  the  burning  of  a  foul  chim- 
ney in  that  clash  of  Michael  and  Satan  which  flamed  up 

20  under  your  very  eyes? 

Before  our  war  we  were  to  Europe  but  a  huge  mob  of 
adventurers  and  shop-keepers.  Leigh  Hunt  expressed  it 
well  enough  when  he  said  that  he  could  never  think  of 
America  without  seeing  a  gigantic  counter  stretched  all 

25  along  the  seaboard.  Feudalism  had  by  degrees  made 
commerce,  the  great  civilizer,  contemptible.  But  a 
tradesman  with  sword  on  thigh  and  very  prompt  of 
stroke  was  not  only  redoubtable,  he  had  become  respect- 
able also.     Few  people,  I  suspect,  alluded  twice  to  a 

30  needle  in  Sir  John  Hawkwood's  presence,  after  that 
doughty  fighter  had  exchanged  it  for  a  more  dangerous 
tool  of  the  same  metal.  Democracy  had  been  hitherto 
only  a  ludicrous  effort  to  reverse  the  laws  of  nature  by 
thrusting  Cleon  into  the  place  of  Pericles.     But  a  democ- 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    265 

racy  that  could  fight  for  an  abstraction,  whose  members 
held  life  and  goods  cheap  compared  with  that  larger  life 
which  we  call  country,  was  not  merely  unheard-of,  but 
portentous.  It  was  the  nightmare  of  the  Old  World 
taking  upon  itself  flesh  and  blood,  turning  out  to  be  5 
substance  and  not  dream.  Since  the  Norman  crusader 
clanged  down  upon  the  throne  of  the  porphyro-geniti, 
carefully-draped  appearances  had  never  received  such  a 
shock,  had  never  been  so  rudely  called  on  to  produce 
their  titles  to  the  empire  of  the  world.  Authority  has  10 
had  its  periods  not  unlike  those  of  geology,  and  at  last 
comes  Man  claiming  kingship  in  right  of  his  mere  man- 
hood. The  world  of  the  Saurians  might  be  in  some 
respects  more  picturesque,  but  the  march  of  events  is 
inexorable,  and  it  is  bygone.  15 

The  young  giant  had  certainly  got  out  of  long-clothes. 
He  had  become  the  enfant  terrible  of  the  human  house- 
hold. It  was  not  and  will  not  be  easy  for  the  world 
(especially  for  our  British  cousins)  to  look  upon  us  as 
grown  up.  The  youngest  of  nations,  its  people  must  also  20 
be  young  and  to  be  treated  accordingly,  was  the  syl- 
logism— as  if  libraries  did  not  make  all  nations  equally 
old  in  all  those  respects,  at  least,  where  age  is  an  ad- 
vantage and  not  a  defect.  Youth,  no  doubt,  has  its  good 
qualities,  as  people  feel  who  are  losing  it,  but  boyishness  25 
is  another  thing.  We  had  been  somewhat  boyish  as  a 
nation,  a  little  loud,  a  little  pushing,  a  little  braggart. 
But  might  it  not  partly  have  been  because  we  felt  that 
we  had  certain  claims  to  respect  that  were  not  admitted? 
The  war  which  established  our  position  as  a  vigorous  30 
nationality  has  also  sobered  us.  A  nation,  like  a  man 
cannot  look  death  in  the  eye  for  four  years,  without  some 
strange  reflections,  without  arriving  at  some  clearer  con- 
sciousness of  the  stuff  it  is  made  of,  without  some  great 


266  James   Russell  Lowell 

moral  change.  Such  a  change,  or  the  beginning  of  it, 
no  observant  person  can  fail  to  see  here.  Our  thought 
and  our  politics,  our  bearing  as  a  people,  are  assuming  a 
manlier  tone.  We  have  been  compelled  to  see  what  was 
5  weak  in  democracy  as  well  as  what  was  strong.  We 
have  begun  obscurely  to  recognize  that  things  do  not  go 
of  themselves,  and  that  popular  government  is  not  in 
itself  a  panacea,  is  no  better  than  any  other  form  except 
as  the  virtue  and  wisdom  of  the  people  make  it  so,  and 

lo  that  when  men  undertake  to  do  their  own  kingship,  they 
enter  upon  the  dangers  and  responsibilities  as  well  as 
the  privileges  of  the  function.  Above  all,  it  looks  as  if 
we  were  on  the  way  to  be  persuaded  that  no  government 
can  be  carried  on  by  declamation.     It  is  noticeable  also 

IS  that  facility  of  communication  has  made  the  best  Eng- 
lish and  French  thought  far  more  directly  operative 
here  than  ever  before.  Without  being  Europeanized, 
our  discussion  of  important  questions  in  statesmanship, 
political  economy,  in  aesthetics,  is  taking  a  broader  scope 

20  and  a  higher  tone.  It  had  certainly  been  provincial, 
one  might  almost  say  local,  to  a  very  unpleasant  extent. 
Perhaps  our  ex-perience  in  soldiership  has  taught  us  to 
value  training  more  than  we  have  been  popularly  wont. 
We  may  possibly  come  to  the  conclusion,  one  of  these 

25  days,  that  self-made  men  may  not  be  always  equally 

skilful    in    the   manufacture   of   wisdom,    may   not   be 

divinely  commissioned  to  fabricate  the  higher  qualities 

of  opinion  on  all  possible  topics  of  human  interest. 

So  long   as  we  continue   to  be   the  most  common- 

30  schooled  and  the  least  cultivated  people  in  the  world,  I 
suppose  we  must  consent  to  endure  this  condescending 
manner  of  foreigners  toward  us.  The  more  friendly 
they  mean  to  be  the  more  ludicrously  prominent  it  be- 
comes.    They  can  never  appreciate  the  immense  amount 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    267 

of  silent  work  that  has  been  done  here,  making  this 
continent  slowly  fit  for  the  abode  of  man,  and  which 
will  demonstrate  itself,  let  us  hope,  in  the  character  of 
the  people.  Outsiders  can  only  be  expected  to  judge  a 
nation  by  the  amount  it  has  contributed  to  the  civiliza-  5 
tion  of  the  world;  the  amount,  that  is,  that  can  be  seen 
and  handled.  A  great  place  in  history  can  only  be 
achieved  by  competitive  examinations,  nay,  by  a  long 
course  of  them.  How  much  new  thought  have  we  con- 
tributed to  the  common  stock?  Till  that  question  can  10 
be  triumphantly  answered,  or  needs  no  answer,  we  must 
continue  to  be  simply  interesting  as  an  experiment,  to 
be  studied  as  a  problem,  and  not  respected  as  an  at- 
tained result  or  an  accomplished  solution.  Perhaps,  as 
I  have  hinted,  their  patronizing  manner  toward  us  is  the  15 
fair  result  of  their  failing  to  see  here  anything  more  than 
a  poor  imitation,  a  plaster-cast  of  Europe.  And  are 
they  not  partly  right?  If  the  tone  of  the  uncultivated 
American  has  too  often  the  arrogance  of  the  barbarian, 
is  not  that  of  the  cultivated  as  often  vulgarly  apologetic?  20 
In  the  America  they  meet  with  is  there  the  simplicity, 
the  manliness,  the  absence  of  sham,  the  sincere  human 
nature,  the  sensitiveness  to  duty  and  implied  obligation, 
that  in  any  way  distinguishes  us  from  what  our  orators 
call  "the  effete  civilization  of  the  Old  World"?  Is  25 
there  a  politician  among  us  daring  enough  (except  a 
Dana  here  and  there)  to  risk  his  future  on  the  chance 
of  our  keeping  our  word  with  the  exactness  of  super- 
stitious communities  like  England?  Is  it  certain  that 
we  shall  be  ashamed  of  a  bankruptcy  of  honor,  if  we  30 
can  only  keep  the  letter  of  our  bond?  I  hope  we  shall 
be  able  to  answer  all  these  questions  with  a  frank  yes. 
At  any  rate,  we  would  advise  our  visitors  that  we  are 
not  merely  curious  creatures,  but  belong  to  the  family 


268  James  Russell  Lowell 

of  man,  and  that,  as  individuals,  we  are  not  to  be  al- 
ways subjected  to  the  competitive  examination  above 
mentioned,  even  if  we  acknowledged  their  competence 
as  an  examining  board.  Above  all,  we  beg  them  to  re- 
5  member  that  America  is  not  tc  us,  as  to  them,  a  mere 
object  of  external  interest  to  be  discussed  and  analyzed, 
but  in  us,  part  of  our  very  marrow.  Let  them  not  sup- 
pose that  we  conceive  of  ourselves  as  exiles  from  the 
graces  and  amenities  of  an  older  date  than  we,  though 

lo  very  much  at  home  in  a  state  of  things  not  yet  all  it 
might  be  or  should  be,  but  which  we  mean  to  make  so, 
and  which  we  find  both  wholesome  and  pleasant  for  men 
(though  perhaps  not  for  dilettanti)  to  live  in.  "The  full 
tide  of  human  existence"  may  be  felt  here  as  keenly  as 

15  Johnson  felt  it  at  Charing  Cross,  and  in  a  larger  sense. 
I  know  one  person  who  is  singular  enough  to  think 
Cambridge  the  very  best  spot  on  the  habitable  globe. 
"Doubtless  God  co^ild  have  made  a  better,  but  doubtless 
he  never  did." 

20  It  will  take  England  a  great  while  to  get  over  her  airs 
of  patronage  toward  us,  or  even  passably  to  conceal  them. 
She  cannot  help  confounding  the  people  with  the  coun- 
try, and  regarding  us  as  lusty  juveniles.  She  has  a  con- 
viction  that  whatever  good   there  is  in  us  is  wholly 

25  English,  when  the  truth  is  that  we  are  worth  nothing  ex- 
cept so  far  as  we  have  disinfected  ourselves  of  Anglicism. 
She  is  especially  condescending  just  now,  and  lavishes 
sugar-plums  on  us  as  if  we  had  not  outgrown  them.  I 
am  no  believer  in  sudden  conversions,  especially  in  sud- 

30  den  conversions  to  a  favorable  opinion  of  people  who 
have  just  proved  you  to  be  mistaken  in  judgment  and 
therefore  unwise  in  ])olicy.  I  never  blamed  her  for  not 
wishing  well  to  democracy — how  should  she? — but 
Alabamas  are  not  wishes.     Let  her  not  be  too  hasty  in  be- 


On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners    269 

lieving  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson's  pleasant  words.  Though 
there  is  no  thoughtful  man  in  America  who  would  not 
consider  a  war  with  England  the  greatest  of  calamities, 
yet  the  feeling  toward  her  here  is  very  far  from  cordial, 
whatever  our  Minister  may  say  in  the  effusion  that  comes  5 
after  ample  dining.  Mr.  Adams,  with  his  famous  "  My 
Lord,  this  means  war,"  perfectly  represented  his  country. 
Justly  or  not,  we  have  a  feeling  that  we  have  been 
wronged,  not  merely  insulted.  The  only  sure  way  of 
bringing  about  a  healthy  relation  between  the  two  coun-  10 
tries  is  for  Englishmen  to  clear  their  minds  of  the  notion 
that  we  are  always  to  be  treated  as  a  kind  of  inferior 
and  deported  Englishman  whose  nature  they  perfectly 
understand,  and  whose  back  they  accordingly  stroke  the 
wrong  way  of  the  fur  with  amazing  perseverance.  Let  15 
them  learn  to  treat  us  naturally  on  our  merits  as  human 
beings,  as  they  would  a  German  or  a  Frenchman,  and  not 
as  if  we  were  a  kind  of  counterfeit  Briton  whose  crime  ap- 
peared in  every  shade  of  difference,  and  before  long  there 
would  come  that  right  feeling  which  we.  naturally  call  a  20 
good  understanding.  The  common  blood,  and  still  more 
the  common  language,  are  fatal  instruments  of  misap- 
prehension. Let  them  give  up  trying  to  understand  us, 
still  more  thinking  that  they  do,  and  acting  in  various 
absurd  ways  as  the  necessary  consequence,  for  they  will  25 
never  arrive  at  that  devout-to-be-wished  consummation, 
till  they  learn  to  look  at  us  as  we  are  and  not  as  they 
suppose  us  to  be.  Dear  old  long-estranged  mother-in- 
law,  it  is  a  great  many  years  since  we  parted.  Since 
1660,  when  you  married  again,  you  have  been  a  step-  30 
mother  to  us.  Put  on  your  spectacles,  dear  madam. 
Yes,  we  have  grown,  and  changed  likewise.  You  would 
not  let  us  darken  your  doors,  if  you  could  help  it.  We 
know  that  perfectly  well.     But  pray,  when  we  look  to  be 


270  James  Russell  Lowell 

treated  as  men,  don't  shake  that  rattle  in  our  faces,  nor 
talk  baby  to  us  any  longer. 

"Do,  child,  go  to  it  grandam,  child; 
Give  grandam  kingdom,  and  it  grandam  will 
Give  it  a  plum,  a  cherry,  and  a  fig!" 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

EL  DORADO 

It  seems  as  if  a  great  deal  were  attainable  in  a  world 
where  there  are  so  many  marriages  and  decisive  battles, 
and  where  we  all,  at  certain  hours  of  the  day,  and  with 
great  gusto  and  despatch,  stow  a  portion  of  victuals 
finally  and  irretrievably  into  the  bag  which  contains  us.  5 
And  it  would  seem  also,  on  a  hasty  view,  that  the 
attainment  of  as  much  as  possible  was  the  one  goal  of 
man's  contentious  life.  And  yet,  as  regards  the  spirit, 
this  is  but  a  semblance.  We  live  in  an  ascending  scale 
when  we  live  happily,  one  thing  leading  to  another  in  an  10 
endless  series.  There  is  always  a  new  horizon  for 
onward-looking  men,  and  although  we  dwell  on  a  small 
planet,  immersed  in  petty  business  and  not  enduring 
beyond  a  brief  period  of  years,  we  are  so  constituted  that 
our  hopes  are  inaccessible,  like  stars,  and  the  term  of  15 
hoping  is  prolonged  until  the  term  of  life.  To  be  truly 
happy  is  a  question  of  how  we  begin  and  not  of  how  we 
end,  of  what  we  want  and  not  of  what  we  have.  An 
aspiration  is  a  joy  for  ever,  a  possession  as  solid  as  a 
landed  estate,  a  fortune  which  we  can  never  exhaust  20 
and  which  gives  us  year  by  year  a  revenue  of  pleasurable 
activity.  To  have  many  of  these  is  to  be  spiritually  rich. 
Life  is  only  a  very  dull  and  ill-directed  theater  unless  we 
have  some  interests  in  the  piece;  and  to  those  who  have 
neither  art  nor  science,  the  world  is  a  mere  arrangement  of  25 
colors,  or  a  rough  footway  where  they  may  very  well 

271 


272  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

break  their  shins.  It  is  in  virtue  of  his  own  desires  and 
curiosities  that  any  man  continues  to  exist  with  even 
patience,  that  he  is  charmed  by  the  look  of  things  and 
people,  and  that  he  wakens  every  morning  with  a  renewed 
5  appetite  for  work  and  pleasure.  Desire  and  curiosity  are 
the  two  eyes  through  which  he  sees  the  world  in  the  most 
enchanted  colors:  it  is  they  that  make  women  beautiful 
or  fossils  interesting:  and  the  man  may  squander  his 
estate  and  come  to  beggary,  but  if  he  keeps  these  two 

10  amulets  he  is  still  rich  in  the  possibilities  of  pleasure. 
Suppose  he  could  take  one  meal  so  compact  and  compre- 
hensive that  he  should  never  hunger  any  more;  suppose 
him,  at  a  glance,  to  take  in  all  the  features  of  the  world 
and  allay  the  desire  for  knowledge;  suppose  him  to  do  the 

15  like  in  any  province  of  experience— would  not  that  man 
be  in  a  poor  way  for  amusement  ever  after? 

One  who  goes  touring  on  foot  with  a  single  volume  in 
his  knapsack  reads  with  circumspection,  pausing  often  to 
reflect,  and  often  laying  the  book  down  to  contemplate  the 

20  landscape  or  the  prints  in  the  inn  parlor;  for  he  fears  to 
come  to  an  end  of  his  entertainment,  and  be  left  compan- 
ionless  on  the  last  stages  of  his  journey.  A  young  fellow 
recently  finished  the  works  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  winding 
up,  if  we  remember  aright,  with  the  ten  note-books  upon 

25  Frederick  the  Great.  "What!"  cried  the  young  fellow, 
in  consternation,  "is  there  no  more  Carlyle?  Am  I  left 
to  the  daily  papers?"  A  more  celebrated  instance  is 
that  of  Alexander,  who  wept  bitterly  because  he  had  no 
more  worlds  to  subdue.     And  when  Gibbon  had  finished 

30  the  Decline  and  Fall,  he  had  only  a  few  moments  of  joy; 
and  it  was  with  a  "sober  melancholy"  that  he  parted 
from  his  labors. 

Happily  we  all  shoot  at  the  moon  with  ineffectual 
arrows;  our  hopes  are  set  on  inaccessible  El  Dorado; 


El  Dorado  273 

we  come  to  an  end  of  nothing  here  below.  Interests  are 
only  plucked  up  to  sow  themselves  again,  like  mustard. 
You  would  think,  when  the  child  was  born,  there  would 
be  an  end  to  trouble;  and  yet  it  is  only  the  beginning  of 
fresh  anxieties;  and  when  you  have  seen  it  through  its  5 
teething  and  its  education,  and  at  last  its  marriage,  alas! 
it  is  only  to  have  new  fears,  new  quivering  sensibilities, 
with  every  day;  and  the  health  of  your  children's  children 
grows  as  touching  a  concern  as  that  of  your  own.  Again, 
when  you  have  married  your  wife,  you  would  think  you  10 
were  got  upon  a  hilltop,  and  might  begin  to  go  downward 
by  an  easy  slope.  But  you  have  only  ended  courting  to 
begin  marriage.  Falling  in  love  and  winning  love  are 
often  difficult  tasks  to  overbearing  and  rebellious  spirits; 
but  to  keep  in  love  is  also  a  business  of  some  importance,  15 
to  which  both  man  and  wife  must  bring  kindness  and 
good-will.  The  true  love  story  commences  at  the  altar, 
when  there  lies  before  the  married  pair  a  most  beau- 
tiful contest  of  wisdom  and  generosity,  and  a  life-long 
struggle  toward  an  unattainable  ideal.  Unattainable?  20 
Ay,  surely  unattainable,  from  the  very  fact  that  they  are 
two  instead  of  one. 

*'0f  making  books  there  is  no  end,"  complained  the 
Preacher;  and  did  not  perceive  how  highly  he  was  prais- 
ing letters  as  an  occupation.  There  is  no  end,  indeed,  to  25 
making  books  or  experiments,  or  to  travel,  or  to  gathering 
wealth.  Problem  gives  rise  to  problem.  We  may 
study  for  ever,  and  we  are  never  as  learned  as  we  would. 
We  have  never  made  a  statue  worthy  of  our  dreams. 
And  when  we  have  discovered  a  continent,  or  crossed  a  30 
chain  of  mountains,  it  is  only  to  find  another  ocean  or 
another  plain  upon  the  further  side.  In  the  infinite 
universe  there  is  room  for  our  swiftest  diligence  and  to 
spare.     It  is  not  like  the  works  of  Carlyle,  which  can  be 


274  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

read  to  an  end.  Even  in  a  corner  of  it,  in  a  private  park, 
or  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  single  hamlet,  the  weather 
and  the  seasons  keep  so  deftly  changing  that  although  we 
walk  there  for  a  lifetime  there  will  be  always  something 
5  new  to  startle  and  delight  us. 

There  is  only  one  wish  realizable  on  the  earth;  only 
one  thing  that  can  be  perfectly  attained:  Death.  And 
from  a  variety  of  circumstances  we  have  no  one  to  tell  us 
whether  it  be  worth  attaining. 

lo  A  strange  picture  we  make  on  our  way  to  our  chimaeras, 
ceaselessly  marching,  grudging  ourselves  the  time  for  rest; 
indefatigable,  adventurous  pioneers.  It  is  true  that  we 
shall  never  reach  the  goal;  it  is  even  more  than  probable 
that  there  is  no  such  place;  and  if  we  lived  for  centuries 

15  and  were  endowed  with  the  powers  of  a  god,  we  should 
find  ourselves  not  much  nearer  what  we  wanted  at  the 
end.  O  toiling  hands  of  mortals!  O  unwearied  feet, 
traveling  ye  know  not  whither!  Soon,  soon,  it  seems  to 
you,  you  must  come  forth  on  some  conspicuous  hilltop, 

20  and  but  a  little  way  further,  against  the  setting  sun, 
descry  the  spires  of  El  Dorado.  Little  do  ye  know  your 
own  blessedness;  for  to  travel  hopefully  is  a  better  thing 
than  to  arrive,  and  the  true  success  is  to  lobor. 

WALKING  TOURS 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  a  walking  tour,  as  some 
25  would  have  us  fancy,  is  merely  a  better  or  worse  way  of 
seeing  the  country.  There  are  many  ways  of  seeing  land- 
scape quite  as  good;  and  none  more  vivid,  in  spite  of  cant- 
ing dilettantes,  than  from  a  railway  train.  But  landscape 
on  a  walking  tour  is  quite  accessory.  He  who  is  indeed 
30  of  the  brotherhood  does  not  voyage  in  quest  of  the  pic- 
turesque, but  of  certain  jolly  humors — of  the  hope  and 


Walking  Tours  275 

spirit  with  which  the  march  begins  at  morning,  and  the 
peace  and  spiritual  repletion  of  the  evening's  rest.  He 
cannot  tell  whether  he  puts  his  knapsack  on,  or  takes  it  off, 
with  more  delight.  The  excitement  of  the  departure  puts 
him  in  key  for  that  of  the  arrivah  Whatever  he  does  is  5 
not  only  a  reward  in  itself,  but  will  be  further  rewarded 
in  the  sequel;  and  so  pleasure  leads  on  to  pleasure  in  an 
endless  chain.  It  is  this  that  so  few  can  understand; 
they  will  either  be  always  lounging  or  always  at  five  miles 
an  hour;  they  do  not  play  off  the  one  against  the  other,  10 
prepare  all  day  for  the  evening,  and  all  evening  for  the 
next  day.  And,  above  all,  it  is  here  that  your  overwalker 
fails  of  comprehension.  His  heart  rises  against  those  who 
drink  their  curajoa  in  liqueur  glasses,  when  he  himself 
can  swill  it  in  a  brown  John.  He  will  not  believe  that  the  1 5 
flavor  is  more  delicate  in  the  smaller  dose.  He  will  not 
believe  that  to  walk  this  unconscionable  distance  is 
merely  to  stupefy  and  brutalize  himself,  and  come  to  his 
inn,  at  night,  with  a  sort  of  frost  on  his  five  wits,  and  a  star- 
less night  of  darkness  in  his  spirit.  Not  for  him  the  2c 
mild  luminous  evening  of  the  temperate  walker !  He  has 
nothing  left  of  man  but  a  physical  need  for  bedtime  and  a 
double  nightcap;  and  even  his  pipe,  if  he  be  a  smoker,  will 
be  savorless  and  disenchanted.  It  is  the  fate  of  such  an 
one  to  take  twice  as  much  trouble  as  is  needed  to  obtain  25 
happiness,  and  miss  the  happiness  in  the  end;  he  is  the 
man  of  the  proverb,  in  short,  who  goes  further  and  fares 
worse. 

Now,  to  be  properly  enjoyed,  a  walking  tour  should  be 
gone  upon  alone.  If  you  go  in  a  company,  or  even  in  pairs,  3c 
it  is  no  longer  a  walking  tour  in  anything  but  name;  it  is 
something  else  and  more  in  the  nature  of  a  picnic.  A 
walking  tour  should  be  gone  upon  alone,  because  freedom 
is  of  the  essence;  because  you  should  be  able  to  stop  and 


276  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

go  on,  and  follow  this  way  or  that,  as  the  freak  takes  you; 
and  because  you  must  have  your  own  pace,  and  neither 
trot  alongside  a  champion  walker,  nor  mince  in  time  with 
a  girl.  And  then  you  must  be  open  to  all  impressions  and 
5  let  your  thoughts  take  color  from  what  you  see.  You 
should  be  as  a  pipe  for  any  wind  to  play  upon.  *'  I  can- 
not see  the  wit,"  says  Hazlitt,  "of  walking  and  talking  at 
the  same  time.  When  I  am  in  the  country  I  wish  to  vege- 
tate like  the  country" — which  is  the  gist  of  all  that  can 

10  be  said  upon  the  matter.  There  should  be  no  cackle  of 
voices  at  your  elbow,  to  jar  on  the  meditative  silence  of  the 
morning.  And  so  long  as  a  man  is  reasoning  he  cannot 
surrender  hiftiself  to  that  fine  intoxication  that  comes  of 
much  motion  in  the  open  air,  that  begins  in  a  sort  of 

IS  dazzle  and  sluggishness  of  the  brain,  and  ends  in  a  peace 
that  passes  comprehension. 

During  the  first  day  or  so  of  any  tour  there  are  moments 
of  bitterness,  when  the  traveler  feels  more  than  coldly 
toward  his  knapsack,  when  he  is  half  in  a  mind  to  throw 

20  it  bodily  over  the  hedge  and,  like  Christian  on  a  similar 
occasion,  "give  three  leaps  and  go  on  singing."  And 
yet  it  soon  acquires  a  property  of  easiness.  It  becomes 
magnetic;  the  spirit  of  the  journey  enters  into  it.  And  no 
sooner  have  you  passed  the  straps  over  your  shoulder  than 

25  the  lees  of  sleep  are  cleared  from  you,  you  pull  yourself 
together  with  a  shake,  and  fall  at  once  into  your  stride. 
And  surely,  of  all  possible  moods,  this,  in  which  a  man 
takes  the  road,  is  the  best.  Of  course,  if  he  will  keep 
thinking  of  his  anxieties,  if  he  will  open  the  merchant 

30  Abudah's  chest  and  walk  arm-in-arm  with  the  hag — why 
wherever  he  is,  and  whether  he  walk  fast  or  slow,  the 
chances  are  that  he  will  not  be  happy.  And  so  much 
the  more  shame  to  himself!  There  are  perhaps  thirty 
men  setting  forth  at  that  same  hour,  and  I  would  lay  a 


Walking  Tours  277 

large  wager  there  is  not  another  dull  face  among  the 
thirty.  It  would  be  a  fine  thing  to  follow,  in  a  coat  of 
darkness,  one  after  another  of  these  wayfarers,  some 
summer  morning,  for  the  first  few  miles  upon  the 
road.  This  one,  who  walks  fast,  with  a  keen  look  in  5 
his  eyes,  is  all  concentrated  in  his  own  mind;  he  is  up 
at  his  loom,  weaving  and  weaving,  to  set  the  landscape 
to  words.  This  one  peers  about,  as  he  goes,  among  the 
grasses;  he  waits  by  the  canal  to  watch  the  dragon-flies; 
he  leans  on  the  gate  of  the  pasture,  and  cannot  look  10 
enough  upon  the  complacent  kine.  And  here  comes 
another,  talking,  laughing,  and  gesticulating  to  himself. 
His  face  changes  from  time  to  time,  as  indignation  flashes 
from  his  eyes  or  anger  clouds  his  forehead.  He  is  com- 
posing articles,  delivering  orations,  and  conducting  the  15 
most  impassioned  interviews,  by  the  way.  A  little 
farther  on,  and  it  is  as  like  as  not  he  will  begin  to 
sing.  And  well  for  him,  supposing  him  to  be  no  great 
master  in  that  art,  if  he  stumble  across  no  stolid  peasant 
at  a  corner;  for  on  such  occasion,  I  scarcely  know  which  is  20 
the  more  troubled,  or  whether  it  is  worse  to  suffer  the  con- 
fusion of  your  troubador,  or  the  unfeigned  alarm  of  your 
clown.  A  sedentary  population,  accustomed,  besides, 
to  the  strange  mechanical  bearing  of  the  common  tramp, 
can  in  no  wise  explain  to  itself  the  gaiety  of  these  passers-  25 
by.  I  knew  one  man  who  was  arrested  as  a  runaway 
lunatic,  because,  although  a  full-grown  person  with  a  red 
beard,  he  skipped  as  he  went  like  a  child.  And  you 
would  be  astonished  if  I  were  to  tell  you  all  the  grave 
and  learned  heads  who  have  confessed  to  me  that,  when  30 
on  walking  tours,  they  sang — and  sang  very  ill — and  had 
a  pair  of  red  ears  when,  as  described  above,  the  inau- 
spicious peasant  plumped  into  their  arms  from  round  a 
corner.     And  here,  lest  you  think  I  am  exaggerating,  is 


278  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

Hazlitt's  own  confession,  from  his  essay  On  Going  a 
Journey,  which  is  so  good  that  there  should  be  a  tax 
levied  on  all  who  have  not  read  it: 

"Give  me  the  clear  blue  sky  over  my  head,"  says  he, 
5  "and  the  green  turf  beneath  my  feet,  a  winding  road  be- 
fore me,  and  a  three  hours'  march  to  dinner — and  then  to 
thinking!     It  is  hard  if  I  cannot  start  some  game  on  these 
lone  heaths.     I  laugh,  I  run,  I  leap,  I  sing  for  joy." 

Bravo!     After  that  adventure  of  my  friend  with  the 

10  policeman,  you  would  not  have  cared,  would  you,  to  pub- 
lish that  in  the  first  person?  But  we  have  no  bravery 
nowadays,  and,  even  in  books,  must  all  pretend  to  be  dull 
and  foolish  as  our  neighbors.  It  was  not  so  with  Haz- 
litt.     And  notice  how  learned  he  is  (as,  indeed,  through- 

15  out  the  essay)  in  the  theory  of  walking  tours.     He  is 

none  of  your  athletic  men  in  purple  stockings,  who  walk 

their  fifty  miles  a  day:  three  hours'  march  is  his  ideal. 

And  then  he  must  have  a  winding  road,  the  epicure! 

Yet  there  is  one  thing  I  object  to  in  these  words  of  his, 

20  one  thing  in  the  great  master's  practice  that  seems  to  me 
not  wholly  wise.  I  do  not  approve  of  that  leaping  and 
running.  Both  of  these  hurry  the  respiration;  they  both 
shake  up  the  brain  out  of  its  glorious  open-air  confusion; 
and  they  both  break  the  pace.     Uneven  walking  is  not  so 

25  agreeable  to  the  body,  and  it  distracts  and  irritates  the 
mind.  Whereas,  when  once  you  have  fallen  into  an 
equable  stride,  it  requires  no  conscious  thought  from  you 
to  keep  it  up,  and  yet  it  prevents  you  from  thinking  ear- 
nestly of  anything  else.     Like  knitting,  like  the  work  of  a 

30  copying  clerk,  it  gradually  neutralizes  and  sets  to  sleep 
the  serious  activity  of  the  mind.  We  can  think  of  this  or 
that,  lightly  and  laughingly,  as  a  child  thinks,  or  as  we 
think  in  a  morning  doze;  we  can  make  puns  or  puzzle  out 
acrostics,  and  trifle  in  a  thousand  ways  with  words  and 


Walking  Tours  279 

rimes;  but  when  it  comes  to  honest  work,  when  we  come  to 
gather  ourselves  together  for  an  effort,  we  may  sound  the 
trumpet  as  loud  and  long  as  we  please;  the  great  barons 
of  the  mind  will  not  rally  to  the  standard,  but  sit,  each 
one,  at  home,  warming  his  hands  over  his  own  fire  and  5 
brooding  on  his  own  private  thought! 

In  the  course  of  a  day's  walk,  you  see,  there  is  much 
variance  in  the  mood.  From  the  exhilaration  of  the 
start,  to  the  happy  phlegm  of  the  arrival,  the  change  is 
certainly  great.  As  the  day  goes  on,  the  traveler  moves  10 
from  the  one  extreme  toward  the  other.  He  becomes 
more  and  more  incorporated  with  the  material  landscape, 
and  the  open-air  drunkenness  grows  upon  him  with  great 
strides,  until  he  posts  along  the  road,  and  sees  everything 
about  him,  as  in  a  cheerful  dream.  The  first  is  certainly  15 
brighter,  but  the  second  stage  is  more  peaceful.  A  man 
does  not  make  so  many  articles  toward  the  end,  nor  does 
he  laugh  aloud;  but  the  purely  animal  pleasures,  the 
sense  of  physical  wellbeing,  the  delight  of  every  inhala- 
tion, of  every  time  the  muscles  tighten  down  the  thigh,  20 
console  him  for  the  absence  of  the  others,  and  bring  him 
to  his  destination  still  content. 

Nor  must  I  forget  to  say  a  word  on  bivouacs.  You 
come  to  a  milestone  on  a  hill,  or  some  place  where  deep 
ways  meet  under  trees;  and  off  goes  the  knapsack,  and  25 
down  you  sit  to  smoke  a  pipe  in  the  shade.  You  sink  into 
yourself,  and  the  birds  come  round  and  look  at  you;  and 
your  smoke  dissipates  upon  the  afternoon  under  the  blue 
dome  of  heaven ;  and  the  sun  lies  warm  upon  your  feet,  and 
the  cool  air  visits  your  neck  and  turns  aside  your  open  30 
shirt.  If  you  are  not  happy,  you  must  have  an  evil  con- 
science. You  may  dally  as  long  as  you  like  by  the  road- 
side. It  is  almost  as  if  the  millennium  were  arrived, 
when  we  shall  throw  our  clocks  and  watches  over  the 


28o  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

housetop,  and  remember  time  and  seasons  no  more. 
Not  to  keep  hours  for  a  lifetime  is,  I  was  going  to 
say,  to  live  for  ever.  You  have  no  idea,  unless  you 
have  tried  it,  how  endlessly  long  is  a  summer's  day, 
5  that  you  measure  out  only  by  hunger,  and  bring  to  an 
end  only  when  you  are  drowsy.  I  know  a  village  where 
there  are  hardly  any  clocks,  where  no  one  knows  more 
of  the  days  of  the  week  than  by  a  sort  of  instinct  for 
the  fete  on  Sundays,  and  where  only  one  person  can 

lo  tell  you  the  day  of  the  month,  and  she  is  generally 
wrong;  and  if  people  were  aware  how  slow  Time  journeyed 
in  that  village,  and  what  armfuls  of  spare  hours  he  gives, 
over  and  above  the  bargain,  to  its  wise  inhabitants,  I 
believe  there  would  be  a  stampede  out  of  London,  Liver- 

15  pool,  Paris,  and  a  variety  of  large  towns,  where  the  clocks 
lose  their  heads,  and  shake  the  hours  out  each  one  faster 
than  the  other,  as  though  they  were  all  in  a  wager.  And 
all  these  foolish  pilgrims  would  each  bring  his  own  misery 
along  with  him,  in  a  watch-pocket!     It  is  to  be  noticed, 

20  there  were  no  clocks  and  watches  in  the  much-vaunted 
days  before  the  flood.  It  follows,  of  course,  there  were  no 
appointments,  and  purxtuality  was  not  yet  thought 
upon.  ''Though  ye  take  from  a  covetous  man  all  his 
treasure,"  says  Milton  "he  has  yet  one  jewel  left;  ye 

25  cannot  deprive  him  of  his  covetousness."  And  so  I 
would  say  of  a  modern  man  of  business,  you  may  do 
wiiat  you  will  for  him,  put  him  in  Eden,  give  him  the 
elixir  of  life — he  has  still  a  flaw  at  heart,  he  still  has 
his  business  habits.     Now,  there  is  no  time  when  busi- 

30  ness  habits  are  more  mitigated  than  on  a  walking  tour. 
And  so  during  these  halts,  as  I  say,  you  will  feel  almost 
free. 

But  it  is  at  night,  and  after  dinner,  that  the  best  hour 
comes.     There  are  no  such  pipes  to  be  smoked  as  those 


Walking  Tours  281 

that  follow  a  good  day's  march;  the  flavor  of  the  tobacco 
is  a  thing  to  be  remembered,  it  is  so  dry  and  aromatic,  so 
full  and  so  fine.  If  you  wind  up  the  evening  with  grog, 
you  will  own  there  was  never  such  grog ;  at  every  sip  a 
jocund  tranquility  spreads  about  your  limbs,  and  sits  5 
easily  in  your  heart.  If  you  read  a  book — and  you  will 
never  do  so  save  by  fits  and  starts — you  find  the  language 
strangely  racy  and  harmonious;  words  take  a  new  mean- 
ing; single  sentences  possess  the  ear  for  half  an  hour  to- 
gether; and  the  writer  endears  himself  to  you,  at  every  10 
page,  by  the  nicest  coincidence  of  sentiment.  It  seems  as 
if  it  were  a  book  you  had  written  yourself  in  a  dream.  To 
all  we  have  read  on  such  occasions  we  look  with  special 
favor.  "  It  was  on  the  loth  of  April,  1798,"  says  Hazlitt, 
with  amorous  precision,  "that  I  sat  down  to  a  volume  15 
of  the  new  Helo'ise,  at  the  Inn  at  Llangollen,  over  a 
bottle  of  sherry  and  a  cold  chicken,"  I  should  wish 
to  quote  more,  for  though  we  are  mighty  fine  fellows 
nowadays,  we  cannot  write  like  Hazlitt.  And,  talking  of 
that,  a  volume  of  Hazlitt's  essays  would  be  a  capital  20 
pocket-book  on  such  a  journey;  so  would  a  volume  of 
Heine's  songs;  and  for  Tristram  Shandy  I  can  pledge  a 
fair  experience. 

If  the  evening  be  fine  and  warm,  there  is  nothing  better 
in  life  than  to  lounge  before  the  inn  door  in  the  sunset,  25 
or  lean  over  the  parapet  of  the  bridge,  to  watch  the  weeds 
and  the  quick  fishes.  It  is  then,  if  ever,  that  you  taste 
Joviality  to  the  full  significance  of  that  audacious  word. 
Your  muscles  are  so  agreeably  slack,  you  feel  so  clean  and 
so  strong  and  so  idle,  that  whether  you  move  or  sit  still,  30 
whatever  you  do  is  done  with  pride  and  a  kingly  sort  of 
pleasure.  You  fall  in  talk  with  any  one,  wise  or  foolish, 
drunk  or  sober.  And  it  seems  as  if  a  hot  walk  purged 
you,  more  than  of  anything  else,  of  all  narrowness  and 


282  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

pride,  and  left  curiosity  to  play  its  part  freely,  as  in  a 
child  or  a  man  of  science.  You  lay  aside  all  your  own 
hobbies,  to  watch  provincial  humors  develop  themselves 
before  you,  now  as  a  laughable  farce,  and  now  grave  -and 
5  beautiful  like  an  old  tale. 

Or  perhaps  you  are  left  to  your  own  company  for  the 
night,  and  surly  weather  imprisons  you  by  the  fire. 
You  may  remember  how  Burns,  numbering  past  pleas- 
ures, dwells  upon  the  hours  when  he  has  been  "happy 

10  thinking."  It  is  a  phrase  that  may  well  perplex  a  poor 
modem,  girt  about  on  every  side  by  clocks  and  chimes, 
and  haunted,  even  at  night,  by  flaming  dial-plates.  For 
we  are  all  so  busy,  and  have  so  many  far-off  projects  to 
realize,  and  castles  in  the  fire  to  turn  into  solid  habitable 

IS  mansions  on  a  gravel  soil,  that  we  can  find  no  time  for 
pleasure  trips  into  the  Land  of  Thought  and  among  the 
Hills  of  Vanity.  Changed  times,  indeed,  when  we  must 
sit  all  night,  beside  the  fire,  with  folded  hands;  and  a 
changed  world  for  most  of  us,  when  we  find  we  can  pass 

20  the  hours  without  discontent,  and  be  happy  thinking. 
We  are  in  such  haste  to  be  doing,  to  be  writing,  to  be 
gathering  gear,  to  make  our  voice  audible  a  moment  in 
the  derisive  silence  of  eternity,  that  we  forget  that  one 
thing,  of  which  these  are  but  the  parts — namely,  to  live. 

25  We  fall  in  love,  we  drink  hard,  we  run  to  and  fro  upon  the 
earth  like  frightened  sheep.  And  now  you  are  to  ask 
yourself  if,  when  all  is  done,  you  would  not  have  been 
better  to  sit  by  the  fire  at  home,  and  be  happy  thinking. 
To  sit  still  and  contemplate — to  remember  the  faces  of 

30  women  without  desire,  to  be  pleased  by  the  great  deeds  of 
men  without  envy,  to  be  everything  and  everywhere  in 
sympathy,  and  yet  content  to  remain  where  and  what  you 
are — is  not  this  to  know  both  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  to 
dwell  with  happiness?    After  all,  it  is  not  they  who  carry 


^s  Triplex  283 

flags,  but  they  who  look  upon  it  from  a  private  chamber, 
who  have  the  fun  of  the  procession.  And  once  you  are 
at  that,  you  are  in  the  very  humor  of  all  social  heresy. 
It  is  no  time  for  shuffling,  or  for  big,  empty  words.  If 
you  ask  yourself  what  you  mean  by  fame,  riches,  or  5 
learning,  the  answer  is  far  to  seek;  and  you  go  back  into 
that  kingdom  of  light  imaginations,  which  seem  so  vain  in 
the  eyes  of  Philistines  perspiring  after  wealth,  and  so 
momentous  to  those  who  are  stricken  with  the  dispropor- 
tions of  the  world,  and,  in  the  face  of  the  gigantic  stars,  10 
cannot  stop  to  split  differences  between  two  degrees  of  the 
infinitesimally  small,  such  as  a  tobacco  pipe  or  the  Roman 
Empire,  a  million  of  money  or  a  fiddlestick's  end. 

You  lean  from  the  window,  your  last  pipe  reeking 
whitely  into  the  darkness,  your  body  full  of  delicious  15 
pains,  your  mind  enthroned  in  the  seventh  circle  of  con- 
tent ;  when  suddenly  the  mood  changes,  the  weathercock 
goes  about,  and  you  ask  yourself  one  question  more; 
whether,  for  the  interval,  you  have  been  the  wisest 
philosopher  or  the  most  egregious  of  donkeys?  Human  20 
experience  is  not  yet  able  to  reply;  but  at  least  you  have 
had  a  fine  moment,  and  looked  down  upon  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  earth.  And  whether  it  was  wise  or  foolish, 
to-morrow's  travel  will  carry  you,  body  and  mind,  into 
some  different  parish  of  the  infinite.  25 

^S     TRIPLEX 

The  changes  wrought  by  death  are  in  themselves  so 
sharp  and  final,  and  so  terrible  and  melancholy  in  their 
consequences,  that  the  thing  stands  alone  in  man's 
experience,  and  has  no  parallel  upon  earth.  It  outdoes 
all  other  accidents  because  it  is  the  last  of  them.  Some-  30 
times  it  leaps  suddenly  upon  its  victims,  like  a  Thug; 


284  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

sometimes  it  lays  a  regular  siege  and  creeps  upon  their 
citadel  during  a  score  of  years.  And  when  the  business 
is  done,  there  is  sore  havoc  made  in  other  people's  lives, 
and  a  pin  knocked  out  by  which  many  subsidiary  friend- 
5  ships  hung  together.  There  are  empty  chairs,  solitary 
walks,  and  single  beds  at  night.  Again,  in  taking  away 
our  friends,  death  does  not  take  them  away  utterly,  but 
leaves  behind  a  mocking,  tragical,  and  soon  intolerable 
residue,  which  must  be  hurriedly  concealed.     Hence  a 

10  whole  chapter  of  sights  and  customs  striking  to  the  mind, 
from  the  pyramids  of  Egypt  to  the  gibbets  and  dule  trees 
of  mediaeval  Europe.  The  poorest  persons  have  a  bit  of 
pageant  going  toward  the  tomb;  memorial  stones  are  set 
up  over  the  least  memorable;  and,  in  order  to  preserve 

15  some  show  of  respect  for  what  remains  of  our  old  loves 
and  friendships,  we  must  accompany  it  with  much  grimly 
ludicrous  ceremonial,  and  the  hired  undertaker  parades 
before  the  door.  All  this,  and  much  more  of  the  same 
sort,  accompanied  by  the  eloquence  of  poets,  has  gone  a 

20  great  way  to  put  humanity  in  error;  nay,  in  many  phil- 
osophies the  error  has  been  embodied  and  laid  down  with 
every  circumstance  of  logic;  although  in  real  life  the  bus- 
tle and  swiftness,  in  leaving  people  little  time  to  think, 
have  not  left  them  time  enough  to  go  dangerously  wrong 

25  in  practice. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  although  few  things  are  spoken  of 
with  more  fearful  whisperings  than  this  prospect  of  death, 
few  have  less  influence  on  conduct  under  healthy  circum- 
stances.    We  have  all  heard  of  cities  in  South  America 

30  built  upon  the  side  of  fiery  mountains,  and  how,  even  in 
this  tremendous  neighborhood,  the  inhabitants  are  not  a 
jot  more  impressed  by  the  solemnity  of  mortal  conditions 
than  if  they  were  delving  gardens  in  the  greenest  corner 
of  England.     There  are  serenades  and  suppers  and  much 


JEs  Triplex  285 

gallantry  among  the  myrtles  overhead;  and  meanwhile 
the  foundation  shudders  underfoot,  the  bowels  of  the 
mountain  growl,  and  at  any  moment  living  ruin  may  leap 
sky-high  into  the  moonlight,  and  tumble  man  and  his 
merry-making  in  the  dust.  In  the  eyes  of  very  young  5 
people,  and  very  dull  old  ones,  there  is  something  inde- 
scribably reckless  and  desperate  in  such  a  picture.  It 
seems  not  credible  that  respectable  married  people,  with 
umbrellas,  should  find  appetite  for  a  bit  of  supper  within 
quite  a  long  distance  of  a  fiery  mountain;  ordinary  life  10 
begins  to  smell  of  high-handed  debauch  when  it  is  carried 
on  so  close  to  a  catastrophe;  and  even  cheese  and  salad, 
it  seems,  could  hardly  be  relished  in  such  circumstances 
without  something  like  a  definace  of  the  Creator.  It 
should  be  a  place  for  nobody  but  hermits  dwelling  in  15 
prayer  and  maceration,  or  mere  born-devils  drowning 
care  in  a  perpetual  carouse. 

And  yet,  when  one  comes  to  think  upon  it  calmly, 
the  situation  of  these  South  American  citizens  forms  only 
a  very  pale  figure  for  the  state  of  ordinary  mankind.  20 
This  world  itself,  traveling  blindly  and  swiftly  in  over- 
crowded space,  among  a  million  other  worlds  traveling 
blindly  and  swiftly  in  contrary  directions,  may  very  well 
come  by  a  knock  that  would  set  it  into  explosion  like  a 
penny  squib.  And  what,  pathologically  looked  at,  is  the  25 
human  body  with  all  its  organs,  but  a  mere  bagful  of 
petards?  The  least  of  these  is  as  dangerous  to  the  whole 
economy  as  the  ship's  powder-magazine  to  the  ship; 
and  with  every  breath  we  breathe,  and  every  meal  we 
eat,  we  are  putting  one  or  more  of  them  in  peril.  If  we  30 
clung  as  devotedly  as  some  philosophers  pretend  we  do 
to  the  abstract  idea  of  life,  or  were  half  as  frightened  as 
they  make  out  we  are,  for  the  subversive  accident  that 
ends  it  all,  the  trumpets  might  sound  by  the  hour  and  no 


286  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

one  would  follow  them  into  battle — the  blue-peter  might 
fly  at  the  truck,  but  who  would  climb  into  a  sea-going 
ship  ?  Think  (if  these  philosophers  were  right)  with  what 
a  preparation  of  spirit  we  should  affront  the  daily  peril 
5  of  the  dinner-table:  a  deadlier  spot  than  any  battle-field 
in  history,  where  the  far  greater  proportion  of  our  ances- 
tors have  miserably  left  their  bones!  What  woman 
would  ever  be  lured  into  marriage,  so  much  more  danger- 
ous than  the  wildest  sea?     And  what  would  it  be  to  grow 

lo  old?  For,  after  a  certain  distance,  every  step  we  take  in 
life  we  find  the  ice  growing  thinner  below  our  feet,  and 
all  around  us  and  behind  us  we  see  our  contemporaries 
going  through.  By  the  time  a  man  gets  well  into  the 
seventies,  his  continued  existence  is  a  mere  miracle;  and 

15  when  he  lays  his  old  bones  in  bed  for  the  night,  there  is  an 
overwhelming  probability  that  he  will  never  see  the  day. 
Do  the  old  men  mind  it,  as  a  matter  of  fact?  Why,  no. 
They  were  never  merrier;  they  have  their  grog  at  night, 
and  tell  the  raciest  stories;  they  hear  of  the  death  of 

20  people  about  their  own  age,  or  even  younger,  not  as  if  it 
was  a  grisly  warning,  but  with  a  simple  childlike  pleasure 
at  having  outlived  someone  else;  and  when  a  draught 
might  puff  them  out  like  a  guttering  candle,  or  a  bit  of  a 
stumble  shatter  them  like  so  much  glass,  their  old  hearts 

25  keep  sound  and  unaffrighted,  and  they  go  on,  bubbling 
with  laughter,  through  years  of  man's  age  compared  to 
which  the  valley  of  Balaclava  was  as  safe  and  peaceful 
as  a  village  cricket-green  on  Sunday.  It  may  fairly  be 
questioned  (if  we  look  to  the  peril  only)  whether  it  was  a 

30  much  more  daring  feat  for  Curtius  to  plunge  into  the  gulf, 
than  for  any  old  gentleman  of  ninety  to  doff  his  clothes 
and  clamber  into  bed. 

Indeed,  it  is  a  memorable  subject  for  consideration, 
with  what  unconcern  and  gaiety  mankind  pricks  on  along 


^s  Triplex  287 

the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  The  whole  way  is 
one  wilderness  of  snares,  and  the  end  of  it,  for  those  who 
fear  the  last  pinch,  is  irrevocable  ruin.  And  yet  we  go 
spinning  through  it  all,  like  a  party  for  the  Derby. 
Perhaps  the  reader  remembers  one  of  the  humorous  5 
devices  of  the  deified  Caligula:  how  he  encouraged  a 
vast  concourse  of  holiday-makers  on  to  his  bridge  over 
Baiae  bay;  and  when  they  were  in  the  height  of  their 
enjoyment,  turned  loose  the  Prsetorian  guards  among  the 
company,  and  had  them  tossed  into  the  sea.  This  is  no  10 
bad  miniature  of  the  dealings  of  nature  with  the  transi- 
tory race  of  man.  Only,  what  a  checkered  picnic 
we  have  of  it,  even  while  it  lasts!  and  into  what  great 
waters,  not  to  be  crossed  by  any  swimmer,  God's  pale 
Praetorian  throws  us  over  in  the  end!  15 

We  live  the  time  that  a  match  flickers;  we  pop  the 
cork  of  a  ginger-beer  bottle,  and  the  earthquake  swallows 
us  on  the  instant.  Is  it  not  odd,  is  it  not  incongruous,  is 
it  not,  in  the  highest  sense  of  human  speech,  incredible, 
that  we  should  think  so  highly  of  the  ginger-beer,  and  20 
regard  so  little  the  devouring  earthquake?  The  love  of 
Life  and  the  fear  of  Death  are  two  famous  phrases  that 
grow  harder  to  understand  the  more  we  think  about  them. 
It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  an  immense  proportion  of 
boat  accidents  would  never  happen  if  people  held  the  25 
sheet  in  their  hands  instead  of  making  it  fast;  and  yet, 
unless  it  be  some  martinet  of  a  professional  mariner  or 
some  landsman  with  shattered  nerves,  every  one  of  God's 
creatures  makes  it  fast.  A  strange  instance  of  man's 
unconcern  and  brazen  boldness  in  the  face  of  death!         30 

We  confound  ourselves  with  metaphysical  phrases, 
which  we  import  into  .daily  talk  with  noble  inappro- 
priateness.  We  have  no  idea  of  what  death  is,  apart  from 
its  circumstances  and  some  of  its  consec^uences  to  others; 


288  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

and  although  we  have  some  experience  of  living,  there  is 
not  a  man  on  earth  who  has  flown  so  high  into  abstraction 
as  to  have  any  practical  guess  at  the  meaning  of  the  word 
life.  All  literature,  from  Job  and  Omar  Khayyam  to 
5  Thomas  Carlyle  or  Walt  Whitman,  is  but  an  attempt 
to  look  upon  the  human  state  with  such  largeness  of 
view  as  shall  enable  us  to  rise  from  the  consideration  of 
living  to  the  Definition  of  Life.  And  our  sages  give  us 
about  the  best  satisfaction  in  their  power  when  they  say 

lo  that  it  is  a  vapor,  or  a  show,  or  made  out  of  the  same  stuff 
with  dreams.  Philosophy,  in  its  more  rigid  sense,  has 
been  at  the  same  work  for  ages;  and  after  a  myriad  bald 
heads  have  wagged  over  the  problem,  and  piles  of  words 
have  been  heaped  one  upon  another  into  dry  and  cloudy 

15  volumes  without  end,  philosophy  has  the  honor  of  laying 
before  us,  with  modest  pride,  her  contribution  toward 
the  subject:  that  life  is  a  Permanent  Possibility  of  Sen- 
sation. Truly  a  fine  result!  A  man  may  very  well  love 
beef,  or  hunting,  or  a  woman;  but  surely,  surely,  not  a 

20  Permanent  Possibility  of  Sensation!  He  may  be  afraid 
of  a  precipice,  or  a  dentist,  or  a  large  enemy  with  a  club, 
or  even  an  undertaker's  man;  but  not  certainly  of 
abstract  death.  We  may  trick  with  the  word  life  in  its 
dozen  senses  until  we  are  weary  of  tricking;  we  may  argue 

25  in  terms  of  all  the  philosophies  on  earth,  but  one  fact 
remains  true  throughout — that  we  do  not  love  life,  in  the 
sense  that  we  are  greatly  preoccupied  about  its  conserva- 
tion; that  we  do  not,  properly  speaking,  love  life  at  all, 
but  living.     Into  the  views  of  the  least  careful  there  will 

30  enter  some  degree  oi  providence;  no  man's  eyes  are  fixed 
entirely  on  the  passing  hour;  but  although  we  have  some 
anticipation  of  good  health,  good  weather,  wine,  active 
employment,  love,  and  self-approval,  the  sum  of  these 
anticipations  does  not  amount  to  anything  like  a  general 


JEs  Triplex  289 

view  of  life's  possibilities  and  issues;  nor  are  those  who 
cherish  them  most  vividly,  at  all  the  most  scrupulous  of 
their  personal  safety.  To  be  deeply  interested  in  the 
accidents  of  our  existence,  to  enjoy  keenly  the  mixed 
texture  of  human  experience,  rather  leads  a  man  to  dis-  5 
regard  precautions,  and  risk  his  neck  against  a  straw. 
For  surely  the  love  of  living  is  stronger  in  an  Alpine 
climber  roping  over  a  peril,  or  a  hunter  riding  merrily 
at  a  stiff  fence,  than  in  a  creature  who  lives  upon  a  diet 
and  walks  a  measured  distance  in  the  interest  of  his  10 
constitution. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  very  vile  nonsense  talked  upon 
both  sides  of  the  matter:  tearing  divines  reducing  life  to 
the  dimensions  of  a  mere  funeral  procession,  so  short  as  to 
be  hardly  decent;  and  melancholy  unbelievers  yearning  15 
for  the  tomb  as  if  it  were  a  world  too  far  away.  Both 
sides  must  feel  a  little  ashamed  of  their  performances 
now  and  again  when  they  draw  in  their  chairs  to  dinner. 
Indeed,  a  good  meal  and  a  bottle  of  wine  is  an  answer  to 
most  standard  works  upon  the  question.  When  a  man's  20 
heart  warms  to  his  viands,  he  forgets  a  great  deal  of 
sophistry,  and  soars  into  a  rosy  zone  of  contemplation. 
Death  may  be  knocking  at  the  door,  like  the  Command- 
er's statue;  we  have  something  else  in  hand,  thank  God, 
and  let  him  knock.  Passing  bells  are  ringing  all  the  world  25 
over.  All  the  world  over,  and  every  hour,  some  one  is 
parting  company  with  all  his  aches  and  ecstasies.  For  us 
also  the  trap  is  laid.  But  we  are  so  fond  of  life  that  we 
have  no  leisure  to  entertain  the  terror  of  death.  It  is  a 
honeymoon  with  us  all  through,  and  none  of  the  longest.  30 
Small  blame  to  us  if  we  give  our  whole  hearts  to  this 
glowing  bride  of  ours,  to  the  appetites,  to  honor,  to  the 
hungry  curiosity  of  the  mind,  to  the  pleasure  of  the  eyes 
in  nature,   and  the  pride  of  our  own  nimble  bodies. 


290  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

We  all  of  us  appreciate  the  sensations;  but  as  for  caring 
about  the  Permanence  of  the  Possibility,  a  man's  head 
is  generally  very  bald,  and  his  senses  very  dull,  before  he 
comes  to  that.  Whether  we  regard  life  as  a  lane  leading 
S  to  a  dead  wall — a  mere  bag's  end,  as  the  French  say — or 
whether  we  think  of  it  as  a  vestibule  or  gymnasium,  where 
we  wait  our  turn  and  prepare  our  faculties  for  some  more 
noble  destiny;  whether  we  thunder  in  a  pulpit,  or  pule  in 
a  little  atheistic  poetry-book,  about  its  vanity  and  brev- 

10  ity;  whether  we  look  justly  for  years  of  health  and  vigor, 
or  are  about  to  mount  into  a  Bath-chair  as  a  step 
toward  the  hearse;  in  each  and  all  of  these  views  and 
situations  there  is  but  one  conclusion  possible:  that  a 
man  should  stop  his  ears  against  paralyzing  terror,  and 

IS  run  the  race  that  is  set  before  him  with  a  single  mind. 
No  one  surely  could  have  recoiled  with  more  heartache 
and  terror  from  the  thought  of  death  than  our  respected 
lexicographer;  and  yet  we  know  how  little  it  affected  his 
conduct,  how  wisely  and  boldly  he  walked,  and  in  what  a 

20  fresh  and  lively  vein  he  spoke  of  life.  Already  an  old 
man,  he  ventured  on  his  Highland  tour;  and  his  heart, 
bound  with  triple  brass,  did  not  recoil  before  twenty- 
seven  individual  cups  of  tea.  As  courage  and  intelligence 
are  the  two  qualities  best  worth  a  good  man's  cultivation, 

25  so  it  is  the  first  part  of  intelligence  to  recognize  our 
precarious  estate  in  life,  and  the  first  part  of  courage  to  be 
not  at  all  abashed  before  the  fact.  A  frank  and  somewhat 
headlong  carriage,  not  looking  too  anxiously  before,  not 
dallying  in  maudlin  regret  over  the  past,  stamps  the  man 

30  who  is  well  armored  for  this  world. 

And  not  only  well  armored  for  himself,  but  a  good 
friend  and  a  good  citizen  to  boot.  We  do  not  go  to 
cowards  for  tender  dealing;  there  is  nothing  so  cruel  as 
panic;  the  man  who  has  least  fear  for  his  own  carcass, 


^s  Triplex  291 

has  most  time  to  consider  others.     That  eminent  chemist 
who  took  his  walks  abroad  in  tin  shoes,  and  subsisted 
wholly  upon  tepid  milk,  had  all  his  work  cut  out  for  him 
in  considerate  dealings  with  his  own  digestion.     So  soon 
as  prudence  has  begun  to  grow  up  in  the  brain,  like  a  dis-    5 
mal  fungus,  it  finds  its  first  expression  in  a  paralysis  of 
generous  acts.     The  victim  begins  to  shrink  spiritually; 
he  develops  a  fancy  for  parlors  with  a  regulated  tempera- 
ture, and   takes  his  morality   on  the   principle  of  tin 
shoes   and   tepid   milk.    The    care   of   one   important  10 
body  or  soul  becomes  so  engrossing,  that  all  the  noises 
of  the  outer  world  begin  to  come  thin  and  faint  into 
the  parlor  with  the  regulated  temperature;   and  the 
tin   shoes  go   equably  forward   over  blood   and  rain. 
To  be  overwise  is  to  ossify;  and  the  scruple-monger  15 
ends  by  standing  stockstill.     Now  the  man  who  has 
his  heart  on  his  sleeve,  and  a  good  whirling  weathercock 
of  a  brain,  who  reckons  his  life  as  a  thing  to  be  dashingly 
used  and  cheerfully  hazarded,  makes  a  very  different 
acquaintance  of  the  world,  keeps  all  his  pulses  going  20 
true  and  fast,  and  gathers  impetus  as  he  runs,  until,  if  he 
be  running  toward   anything   better  than  wildfire,  he 
may  shoot  up  and  become  a  constellation  in  the  end. 
Lord  look  after  his  health.  Lord  have  a  care  of  his  soul, 
says  he;  and  he  has  at  the  key  of  the  position,  and  swashes  25 
through  incongruity  and  peril  toward  his  aim.     Death 
is  on  all  sides  of  him  with  pointed  batteries,  as  he  is  on 
all  sides  of  all  of  us;  unfortunate  surprises  gird  him  round; 
mimmouthed  friends  and  relations  hold  up  their  hands  in 
quite  a  little  elegiacal  synod  about  his  path:  and  what  30 
cares  he  for  all  this?    Being  a  true  lover  of  living,  a 
fellow  with  something  pushing  and  spontaneous  in  his 
inside,  he  must,  like  any  other  soldier,  in  any  other 
Stirring,  deadly  warfare,  push  on  at  his  best  pace  until 


292  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

he  touch  the  goal.  "A  peerage  or  Westminster  Abbey!" 
cried  Nelson  in  his  bright,  boyish,  heroic  manner.  These 
are  great  incentives;  not  for  any  of  these,  but  for  the 
plain  satisfaction  of  living,  of  being  about  their  business 
5  in  some  sort  or  other,  do  the  brave,  serviceable  men  of 
every  nation  tread  down  the  nettle  danger,  and  pass 
flyingly  over  all  the  stumbling-blocks  of  prudence. 
Think  of  the  heroism  of  Johnson,  think  of  that  superb 
indifference  to  mortal  limitation  that  set  him  upon  his 

10  dictionary,  and  carried  him  through  triumphantly  until 
the  end!  Who,  if  he  were  wisely  considerate  of  things 
at  large,  would  ever  embark  upon  any  work  much  more 
considerable  than  a  halfpenny  post  card?  Who  would 
project  a  serial  novel,  after  Thackeray  and  Dickens  had 

15  each  fallen  in  mid-course  ?  Who  would  find  heart  enough 
to  begin  to  live,  if  he  dallied  with  the  consideration  of 
death? 

And,  after  all,  what  sorry  and  pitiful  quibbling  all  this 
is!    To  forego  all  the  issues  of  living  in  a  parlor  with  a 

20  regulated  temperature — as  if  that  were  not  to  die  a  hun- 
dred times  over,  and  for  ten  years  at  a  stretch!  As  if  it 
were  not  to  die  in  one's  own  lifetime,  and  without  even 
the  sad  immunities  of  death!  As  if  it  were  not  to  die, 
and  yet  be  the  patient  spectators  of  our  own  pitiable 

2 5  change !  The  Permanent  Possibility  is  preserved,  but  the 
sensations  carefully  held  at  arm's  length,  as  if  one  kept  a 
photographic  plate  in  a  dark  chamber.  It  is  better  to  lose 
health  like  a  spendthrift  than  to  waste  it  like  a  miser.  It 
is  better  to  live  and  be  done  with  it,  than  to  die  daily  in 

30  the  sickroom.  By  all  means  begin  your  folio;  even  if  the 
doctor  does  not  give  you  a  year,  even  if  he  hesitates  about 
a  month,  make  one  brave  push  and  see  what  can  be  accom- 
plished in  a  week.  It  is  not  only  in  finished  undertakings 
that  we  ought  to  honor  useful  labor.     A  spirit  goes  out  of 


^s  Triplex  293 

che  man  who  means  execution,  which  outlives  the  most 
untimely  ending.  All  who  have  meant  good  work  with 
their  whole  hearts,  have  done  good  work,  although  they 
may  die  before  they  have  the  time  to  sign  it.  Every 
heart  that  has  beat  strong  and  cheerfully  has  left  a  hope-  s 
f  ul  impulse  behind  it  in  the  world,  and  bettered  the  tra- 
dition of  mankind.  And  even  if  death  catch  people,  like 
an  open  pitfall,  and  in  mid-career,  laying  out  vast  pro- 
jects, and  planning  monstrous  foundations,  flushed  with 
hope,  and  their  mouths  full  of  boastful  language,  they  10 
should  be  at  once  tripped  up  and  silenced:  is  there  not 
something  brave  and  spirited  in  such  a  termination? 
and  does  not  life  go  down  with  a  better  grace,  foaming  in 
full  body  over  a  precipice,  than  miserably  straggling  to 
an  end  in  sandy  deltas?  When  the  Greeks  made  their  15 
fine  saying  that  those  whom  the  gods  love  die  young,  I 
cannot  help  believing  they  had  this  sort  of  death  also 
in  their  eye.  For  surely,  at  whatever  age  it  overtake  the 
man,  this  is  to  die  young.  Death  has  not  been  suffered 
to  take  so  much  as  an  illusion  from  his  heart.  In  the  20 
hot-fit  of  life,  a-tiptoe  on  the  highest  point  of  being,  he 
passes  at  a  bound  on  ta  the  other  side.  The  noise  of  the 
mallet  and  chisel  is  scarcely  quenched,  the  trumpets  are 
hardly  done  blowing,  when,  trailing  with  him  clouds  of 
glory,  this  happy-starred,  full-blooded  spirit  shoots  into  25 
the  spiritual  land. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES  AND 
NOTES 

FRANCIS  BACON 

Francis  Bacon  was  born  in  1561,  three  years  after  the  accession 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  three  years  before  the  birth  of  Shakes- 
peare. His  father  was  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  Keeper  of  the  Seals 
to  the  queen;  his  uncle  was  the  queen's  famous  prime  minister, 
Cecil,  Lord  Burleigh. 

Bacon  himself,  from  his  earliest  years,  was  ambitious  of  political 
power  and  place;  but  his  powerful  kinsmen  seem  not  to  have  favored 
this  ambition,  and  he  was  unable  to  secure  any  considerable  ad- 
vancement so  long  as  Elizabeth  lived.  But  with  the  accession 
of  James  First,  his  fortunes  began  to  look  up.  His  assiduous 
court  to  'that  monarch  and  to  his  favorite  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham was  rewarded  by  substantial  and  rapid  promotion.  In  1607 
he  was  made  Solicitor  General,  in  16 13  Attorney  General,  in  16 17 
Lord  Chancellor.  Next  year  the  king  conferred  upon  him  the 
title  of  Baron  Verulam,  and  a  little  later  he  was  made  Viscount 
of  St.  Albans. 

His  character,  however,  was  not  proof  against  some  meaner 
temptations  than  those  of  power.  In  162 1  he  was  charged  with 
taking  bribes  in  his  judicial  office,  and  brought  to  trial  before  the 
House  of  Lords.  He  pleaded  guilty,  was  sentenced  to  pay  a  heavy 
fine  and  to  be  imprisoned  during  the  pleasure  of  the  king.  His 
imprisonment  lasted  but  a  few  days,  and  he  soon  received  a  practical 
pardon  from  the  king;  but  he  never  entered  public  life  again.  After 
his  disgrace  he  retired  to  his  estate  at  St.  Albans,  and  spent  the 
few  remaining  years  of  his  life  in  those  philosophical  studies  in 
which  he  had  long  been  interested,  and  to  which  the  noblest  efforts 
of  his  career  had  been  given.     He  died  in  1626. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  moral  character  of  Bacon  was  not 
commensurate  with  his  intellectual  power.  Later  students  of  his 
life,  it  is  true,  have  shown  that  he  hardly  deserves  the  last  epithet 
of  Pope's  famous  characterization — 

"The  wisest,  brightest,  meanest  of  mankind." 
295 


296        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

It  is  probable  that  the  judicial  misconduct  which  caused  his  down- 
fall was  no  worse  than  that  of  other  men  in  the  corrupt  times  of 
James  First;  but  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  his  motives  through- 
out his  career  were  alloyed  with  a  certain  mean  selfishness  that  led 
him  sometimes  into  sycophancy,  sometimes  into  ingratitude  if  not 
treachery,  and  later  resulted  in  those  acts  that  drove  him  out  of 
public  life. 

Most  of  the  works  on  which  Bacon's  fame  as  a  philosopher 
must  rest  were  written  in  Latin,  and  belong  to  the  later  period 
of  his  life.  Even  his  early  scientific  work,  the  Advancement  of 
Learnhig,  1605,  reappeared  nearly  twenty  years  later  in  a  Latin 
translation,  as  De  Augment  is  Scientianim.  The  Essays,  which  give 
him  his  claim  to  a  high  place  among  English  writers,  were  the 
product  of  his  earlier  years.  The  original  edition,  of  only  ten  essays, 
was  issued  in  1597.  By  1612  the  number  had  grown  to  thirty- 
eight;  and  the  final  edition  of  1625  contains  fifty-eight.  In  each 
successive  edition  the  essays  were  revised  and  expanded;  some  of 
those  in  the  1597  edition  had  grown  by  1625  to  almost  twice  their 
original  length. 

Bacon's  Essays  may  be  said  to  be  the  first  specimens  of  this 
literary  form  in  English  literature.  Both  the  name  and  the  form, 
indeed,  were  doubtless  suggested  to  Bacon  by  the  Essais  of  Mon- 
taigne, which  were  popular  before  1597  in  two  good  English  trans- 
lations. Bacon's  essays  could  not  have  that  delightful  personal 
charm  so  characteristic  of  those  of  Montaigne;  but  they  are  the 
record  of  an  observation  remarkably  acute  and  a  reflection  remark- 
ably profound.  Bacon  himself  declared  that  of  all  his  writings 
they  had  been  "most  current,  for  that,  it  seems,  they  come  home  to 
men's  business  and  bosoms."  They  probably  come  nearer  to 
men's  business  than  to  men's  bosoms;  for  Bacon  sees  all  things 
through  the  cold,  dry  light  of  the  intellect.  He  has  largeness  and 
vigor  of  thought,  and  a  gift  of  imaginative  illustration;  but  he  is 
singularly  deficient  in  either  warmth  or  elevation  of  feeling.  Yet 
nowhere  else  in  our  literature  can  there  be  found  so  much  of  the 
wisdom  of  prudence  packed  in  so  small  a  compass.  What  another 
writer  would  spread  over  a  page.  Bacon  crowds  into  a  sentence.  A 
style  so  condensed  cannot  be  easy  and  flowing;  the  essay  becomes  a 
bundle  of  apothegms.  But,  although  Bacon  deemed  Latin  the 
only  language  fit  for  permanent  record,  his  diction  is  not  highly 
Latinized,  and  his  structure,  though  so  condensed,  is  seldom  in- 
volved or  perplexed.  No  writing  is  more  pithy;  none  more 
stimulating  to  the  intellect. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        297 

Of  Riches 

1,  2.  Impedimenta:  those  things  which  impede,  hindrances. 

I,  7.  Conceit:  imagination. 

I,  8.  Where  much  is,  etc.  See  Ecclesiastes,  v,  11.  The  text 
given  by  Bacon  is  that  of  the  Latin  or  Vulgate,  Version  of  the  Bible. 

I,  ID.  Fruition:  enjoyment.  The  lines  may  be  paraphrased: 
"A  man  cannot  realize  any  enjoyment  of  great  riches;  he  has  the 
custody  of  them,  or  the  power  of  charity  and  gift  from  them,  or 
the  reputation  of  possessing  them." 

1,  18.  Saith  Salomon.     See  Proverbs,  xxni,  11. 

2,  4.  In  studio  rei,  etc.  "  In  his  desire  to  increase  his  fortune, 
it  was  evident  that  he  sought  not  the  gratification  of  avarice  but 
the  means  of  benevolence."  The  quotation  is  from  an  oration  of 
Cicero  in  defence  of  a  Roman  knight  accused  of  having  lent  moneys 
to  a  king  of  Egypt. 

2,  6.  Salomon.  See  Proverbs,  xxviii,  20:  "He  that  maketh 
haste  to  be  rich  shall  not  be  innocent." 

2,  8.  The  poets  feign.  The  story  is  found  in  the  Dialogues  of 
Lucian. 

2,  26.  Audits:  rent-rolls,  accounts  rendered. 

2,  34.  Expect :  wait  for. 

3,  I.  Overcome:  take  advantage  of  those  business  transactions 
which  are  beyond  the  means  of  most  men. 

3,  7.  Wait  upon:  watch  for. 

3,  8.  Broke  by:  profit  by;  make  use  of  servants  or  other  means 
to  draw  men  into  further  business  difficulties. 

3,  10.  Better  chapmen:  better  buyers  or  lenders. 

3,  II.  Naught:  bad,  naughty. 

Chopping:  barter  or  exchange;  chopping  of  bargains, 
means,  therefore,  buying  something  in  large  amounts  iri  order  to 
raise  the  price — what  is  now  called  "making  a  corner." 

3,  15.  Usury:  interest  on  money  loaned. 

3,  17.  In  sudore  vultus  alieni:  "in  the  sweat  of  another  man's 
brow." 

3,  18.  Plow  upon  Sundays.  In  his  essay  upon  Usury,  Bacon 
cites,  among  other  "witty  invectives"  against  the  taking  of  in- 
terest, that  the  "Usurer  is  the  greatest  Sabbath  breaker,  because 
his  plow  goeth  on  Sunday." 

3,  19.  Scrivener:  literally  a  writer;  one  who  draws  contracts 
and  other  business  papers. 

3,  20.  Value  unsound  men :  rate  highly  financially  unsound  men. 


298        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

3,  23.  Sugar  man  in  the  Canaries.  The  cultivation  of  sugar- 
cane was  introduced  into  the  Canary  islands  in  1507,  and  sugar 
soon  became  one  of  the  most  important  articles  of  British  com- 
merce. 

3,  26.  Resteth:  relies. 

3,  31.  Monopolies.  Monopolies  giving  the  exclusive  privilege 
of  dealing  in  certain  commodities  were  often  granted  by  the  crown 
during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  still  more  freely  by  her  successor, 
James  First;  but  the  outcry  against  the  system  became  so  general 
that  in  1624  Parliament  abolished  monopolies,  save  in  a  few  speci- 
fied cases.     See  Traill's  Social  England,  Vol.  IV,  ch.  13. 

4,  I.  Service:  i.e.,  public  service. 

Of  the  best  rise :  best  way  of  rising. 
4,  5.  Testamenta,  etc. :  wills  and  orphans  drawn  into  a  net. 
4,  9.  Despise  them:  i.e.,  riches. 
4,  10.  None  worse:  i.e.,  none  despise  them  less. 
4,   15.  State:  estate,  fortune. 

4,  21.  Advancements:  givings,  charities. 

Of  Studies 

5,  8.  Bounded  in :  checked. 

5,  Q.  Crafty  men:  men  of  practical  ability. 

Admire :  wonder  at. 
5,  21.  Would  be:  should  be. 
Arguments:  subjects. 
5,  24.  Conference :  conversation,  speaking. 
5,  31.  Abeunt  studia  in  mores:  "Studies  pass  into  habits." 

5,  2>~-  Stond:  obstacle. 

5>  33-  Wrought  out:  worked  out,  removed. 

6,  7.  The  schoolmen:  the  philosophers  of  the  middle  ages  who 
held  and  taught  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  especially  as  applied 
to  religion. 

6,  8.  Cymini  sectores:  splitters  of  cumin  seeds;  as  we  say,  hair 
splitters;  prone  to  over-subtle  distinctions. 

Beat  over  matters :  turn  over  matters,  investigate. 

Of  .Vthkism 

6,  12.  The  Legend.  The  Legenda  .\urea  or  Golden  Legend, 
stories  of  saints  and  their  miracles,  by  Jacobus  de  Voragine,  a 
Dorainicao  friar,  who  died  in  1292. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        299 

6,  1,3.  The  Talmud.  A  body  of  Jewish  traditions  and  customs> 
with  Commentary;  the  Alcoran,  or  Koran,  the  Mohammedan  Scrip- 
tures, alleged  to  have  been  divinely  revealed  to  Mohammed. 

6,  19.  Second  causes:  immediate  or  efficient  causes,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  ultimate  or  First  Cause. 

6,  25.  Leucippus:  a  Greek  philosopher,  about  500  B.  C,  founder 
of  the  atomic  school  of  philosophy.  His  views  were  adopted  by  his 
pupil,  Democritus,  and  more  fully  expounded,  250  years  later,  by 
Epicurus. 

6,  27.  Four  mutable  elements.  Aristotle  taught  that  all  terres- 
trial things  were  composed  of  the  four  elements,  fire,  air,  earth,  and 
water;  but  that  there  was  a  fifth,  immutable  element,  ether,  of  which 
the  heavenly  bodies  were  made. 

6,  29.  Seeds  tmplaced.  The  atomic  philosophers  held  that  the 
world  may  have  been  formed  by  the  chance  arrangement  of  atoms. 

6,  31.  The  fool  hath  said.     See  Psalm  xiv,  i. 

7,  5.  For  whom  it  maketh:  for  whose  advantage  it  is. 

7,  22.  Non  deos,  etc. :  "  It  is  not  profane  to  deny  the  gods  of  the 
vulgar,  but  profane  to  attribute  to  the  gods  the  opinions  of  the 
vulgar." 

7,  25.  Deny  the  administration,  etc.  He  dared  to  deny  the 
influence  of  the  gods,  but  he  could  not  deny  their  existence. 

7,  27.  Of  the  West:  i.e.,  of  America. 

8,  I.  Diagoras,  banished  from  Athens  about  420  B.  C.  for  his 
attacks  upon  the  popular  religion;  Bion,  a  student  of  philosophy 
in  Athens  about  260  B.  C.  who  was  a  pronounced  disbeliever  in  the 
gods;  Lucian,  a  brilliant  Greek  satirist  and  freethinker  of  the  second 
century,  who  in  his  Dialogues  of  the  Gods  ridiculed  Greek  religious 
conceptions. 

8,  II.  St.  Bernard:  Abbot  of  Clairvaux,  died  1153.  His  Latin 
may  be  interpreted:  "  We  cannot  now  say,  as  is  the  people  so  are  the 
priests,  for  now  the  people  are  not  so  (bad)  as  the  priests." 

8,  25.  Meliornatura:  a  better,  i.e.,  a  higher,  nature. 

9,  2.  Cicero.  The  quotation  is  from  Dc  Haruspicum  Responsis, 
IX,  19.  It  may  be  translated:  "We  may  admire  ourselves,  Con- 
script Fathers,  if  we  will,  yet  we  have  not  surpassed  the  Spaniards  in 
numbers,  the  Gauls  in  physical  strength,  the  Carthagenians  in 
craft,  the  Greeks  in  arts,  nor,  finally,  the  Italians  and  Latins  them- 
selves in  homely,  native  sense  of  race  and  country;  but  we  do  sur- 
pass other  races  and  nations  in  that  we  are  wise  enough  to  perceive 
all  things  to  be  ruled  and  governed  by  the  power  of  the  immortal 
gods." 


300        biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Queries  and  Suggestions 
I.  Of  Riches. 

1.  Explain  more  fully  what  Bacon  means  by  calling  Riches  the 
"baggage  of  virtue." 

2.  Bacon  says  the  "gains  of  bargains  are  of  a  doubtful  nature." 
What  does  he  mean  by  "the  gains  of  bargains"?  And  why  are 
they  doubtful? 

3.  Do  you  think  Bacon  right  in  pronouncing  usury — i.e.,  interest 
on  money  loaned — one  of  the  worst  means  of  gain? 

4.  Do  you  Icnow  of  any  modern  examples  of  what  Bacon  says  of 
Monopolies? 

5.  Was  Bacon's  own  practice  consistent  at  every  point  with  the 
teaching  of  this  essay? 

II.  Of  Studies. 

1.  "Studies  serve  for  delight,  for  ornament,  and  for  abiUty." 
Explain  this  statement  and  mention  certain  books  or  studies  that 

seem  to  you  well  fitted  for  each  of  these  purposes. 

2.  Explain  more  fully  Bacon's  meaning  in  each  of  the  members 
of  the  statement  "To  spend  too  much  time  in  studies  is  sloth;  to 
use  them  too  much  for  ornament  is  affectation;  to  make  judgment 
wholly  by  their  rules  is  the  humor  of  a  scholar." 

3.  "Some  books  are  to  be  tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed,  and 
some  few  to  be  chewed  and  digested."  Give  an  example  of  each 
kind. 

4.  Why  should  "poets"  make  men  witty?  A  little  further  on 
Bacon  says  that  "if  a  man's  wit  be  wandering,  let  him  study  the 
mathematics."     Are  the  two  statements  consistent? 

III.  Of  Atheism. 

1.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  Atheism? 

2.  "A  little  philosophy  incHneth  man's  mine  fi  atheism,  but 
depth  in  philosophy  bringeth  men's  minds  about  to  religion."  Ex- 
plain somewhat  more  fully  Bacon's  reasons  for  that  statement. 

3.  What  reasons  does  Bacon  give  for  charging  professing  atheists 
with  inconsistency? 

4.  What  causes  of  atheism  are  enumerated  by  Bacon?  Can  you 
think  of  any  that  he  has  not  mentioned? 

ABRAHAM  COWLEY 

Abraham  Cowley  was  born  in  London,  in  the  year  1618.  His 
parents,  says  his  friend  and  biographer,  Bishop  Sprat,  were  "citi- 
zens of  a  virtuous  life  and  suCQcient  estate":   which  handsome 


Blograph  cal  Sketches  and  Notes        301 

phrase,  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  thinks,  is  meant  to  disguise  the  fact 
that  the  father  was  a  Puritan  and  a  grocer.  The  father,  we  know, 
died  before  the  birth  of  his  son,  and  young  Cowley's  early  education 
was  directed  by  his  mother.  If  we  can  trust  his  own  account,  he 
felt  the  call  to  poetry  at  a  very  tender  age.  It  was  when  he  was 
just  beginning  to  read,  that  a  copy  of  Spenser's  Faery  Queen  which 
was  wont  to  lie  in  his  mother's  parlor  awoke  his  childish  imagina- 
tion; before  he  was  twelve  years  of  age  he  had  read  it  over  and  over, 
and  "was  thus  made  irrevocably  a  poet."  The  following  year  he 
gave  proof  of  his  calling  by  issuing  a  thin  volume  of  his  own  verses, 
which,  as  he  said  with  pardonable  indulgence  in  his  later  life, 
contained  some  things  he  was  not  ashamed  of. 

His  plans  for  a  poetic  career  were,  however,  destined  to  inter- 
ruption. Alter  passing  through  Westminister  school,  he  went  on 
to  Cambridge.  When  that  university,  in  the  troublous  times  of 
the  Civil  War,  passed  under  the  control  of  the  Puritans,  Cowley 
indignantly  quitted  it  for  Oxford,  then  the  seat  of  the  royal  govern- 
ment. For,  even  if,  as  Johnson  asserts,  his  father  was  a  Puritan, 
Cowle.v  himself  was  always  a  sturdy  royalist.  At  Oxford  he  formed 
the  acquaintance  of  a  number  of  prominent  noblemen,  and  ac- 
cepted a  position  as  secretary  in  the  household  of  Lord  Henry 
Jermyn,  one  of  the  closest  friends  of  King  Charles.  Cowley  seems 
to  have  made  himself  so  useful  in  the  circle  immediately  about  the 
king  that  when  Queen  Henrietta  Maria  was  forced  to  flee  to  France, 
in  1644,  he  accompanied  her,  and  for  several  years  thereafter  was 
entrusted  with  the  charge  of  the  cipher  correspondence  between 
Charles  and  his  exiled  queen.  He  remained  abroad  twelve  years, 
occupied  in  various  services  for  the  royalist  party,  both  before  and 
after  the  execution  of  Charles.  In  1656,  he  came  over  to  England 
that  he  might,  as  his  biographer  puts  it,  "under  pretence  of  privacjr 
and  retirement,  take  occasion  of  giving  notice  of  the  posture  of 
affairs  in  this  kingdom" — that  is,  in  homelier  language,  serve  as 
a  kind  of  spy  in  the  interest  of  the  king  over  the  water.  But  he 
found  that  service  rather  hazardous;  and  after  escaping  from  arrest 
once,  he  concluded  to  return  to  France,  where  he  remained  until  the 
Restoration.  He  always  regretted  this  long  interruption  of  his 
favorite  studies;  and  in  later  life  was  inclined  to  thmk  it  had  been 
fatal  to  his  chosen  ambition  as  a  poet. 

On  his  return  to  England  for  permanent  residence,  he  failed  to 
secure  from  Charles  Second,  whose  family  he  had  served  so  long, 
any  substantial  recognition  of  his  service.  Disappointed  in  his 
hopes,  and  vexed  by  the  ingratitude  of  men  in  high  place,  he  now 


302        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

persuaded  himself  that  he  wished  only  to  retire  from  public  life, 
and  to  find  somewhere  leisure  and  seclusion.  At  one  time  he  pro- 
fesses to  have  had  serious  thoughts  of  emigrating  to  America. 
He  chose,  instead,  to  accept  a  much  less  distant  retreat.  He  went 
into  the  country,  first  to  Barn  Elms,  a  village  on  the  Thames,  and 
then  to  Chertsey,  where,  through  the  influence  of  his  old  patron 
Lord  Jermyn — now  created  first  Earl  of  St.  Albans — he  was  given 
the  lease  of  a  considerable  estate.  It  is  said,  however,  that  he  did 
not  find  his  rustic  seclusion  as  attractive  as  he  had  pictured  it. 
Dr.  Johnson,  who  never  had  any  desire  for  seclusion,  rather  cruelly 
prints  a  letter  in  which  the  lonesome  poet  complains  that  the 
wretched  weather  has  given  him  a  severe  cold,  that  he  has  fallen 
down  and  nearly  broken  a  rib,  that  his  tenants  will  not  pay  their 
rents  but  pester  him  by  turning  their  cattle  into  his  meadow 
every  night,  with  such  other  annoyances  as,  God  knows,  have 
brought  him  near  to  suicide.  His  retirement,  whether  fortu- 
nate or  not,  he  did  not  long  survive.  Having  overheated  him- 
self by  working  with  the  laborers  one  day,  he  was  seized  with 
a  "defluxion  and  stoppage  in  the  throat,"  which  speedily  carried 
him  off.  He  died  in  1667.  At  his  funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
King  Charles  declared  in  over-late  recognition  of  his  merit,  "Mr. 
Cowley  has  not  left  behind  him  a  better  man  in  England" — a 
remark  very  characteristic  of  this  ungrateful  king,  "Who  never  said 
a  foolish  thing,  and  never  did  a  wise  one." 

So  far  as  can  be  gathered  from  the  testimon}^  of  those  who  knew 
him,  Cowley  seems  to  have  been  of  a  singularly  refined  and  gentle 
temperament,  a  thoughtful,  kindly,  courteous  man,  with  a  slender 
vein  of  melancholy  sentiment.  The  disappointments  of  his  life 
had  depressed  but  not  embittered  him;  if  he  had  not  the  gift  of  a 
more  vigorous  nature  to  make  powerful  friends,  he  seems  to  have 
made  no  enemies. 

The  poetry  of  Cowley,  it  does  not  fall  within  the  purpose  of  this 
volume  to  discuss.  He  wrote  a  good  deal  of  it;  and  for  a  time  en- 
joyed a  fame  which  it  is  now  difficult  to  understand.  Even  IMilton, 
in  those  years  when  he  was  himself  writing  the  Paradise  Lost,  is 
said  to  have  pronounced  Spenser,  Shakespeare  and  Cowley  the 
three  greatest  English  poets.  But  this  eminence  was  very  brief. 
There  is  no  better  example  of  the  transiency  of  literary  fashions. 
Even  as  early  as  1737,  Pope  could  ask 

"Who  now  reads  Cowley?     If  he  pleases  yet, 
His  moral  pleases,  not  his  pointed  wit." 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        303 

Certainly  later  generations  have  not  learned  to  read  him.  The  Mis- 
tress, a  collection  of  love  lyrics,  seems  to  the  reader  of  to-day  to  have 
neither  love  nor  music.  The  Davideis,  a  tedious  epic  on  the  story 
of  King  David,  he  hoped  to  carry  through  twelve  books,  but 
finished  only  four — and  no  one  has  been  found  to  wish  it  longer. 
The  Pindaric  Odes,  his  most  ambitious  effort,  were  much  ad- 
mired in  their  own  day,  as  introducing  into  English  poetry  a 
new  and  lofty  form;  but  most  readers  of  to-day  will  pronounce 
them,  in  spite  of  fine  lines,  grandiose  and  stilted.  There  are  pas- 
sages here  and  there,  and  two  or  three  entire  short  poems,  that  well 
deserve  preservation;  but  it  is  to  be  feared  that  Cowley's  extrava- 
gant statements,  ingenious  conceits,  and  chill  rhetoric,  produce 
in  the  modern  reader  only  a  mixed  feeling  of  wonder  and  irritation. 
But  if  Cowley  is  forgotten  as  a  poet  he  well  deserves  to  be  re- 
membered as  an  essayist.  His  prose  is  as  good  as  his  poetry  is  bad. 
Curiously  enough,  it  is  almost  entirely  free  from  the  unnatural 
artifice  and  ingeniously  bad  taste  that  disfigure  his  verse.  The 
group  of  short  essays,  of  which  two  are  given  in  this  volume,  were 
all  written  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life.  They  have  in  them  the 
wisdom  of  ripened  experience  with  the  charm  of  a  genial  and  kindly 
temperament.  They  are  the  reflections  of  a  thoughtful,  observant 
scholar,  who  knows  both  men  and  books;  and  they  are  written  in  a 
in  a  style  pure,  natural,  and  easy.  Cowley  was  an  excellent 
classical  scholar,  and  Johnson  pronounces  his  Latin  verse 
superior  to  Milton's;  but  his  English  prose  is  singularly  free  from 
the  heavy  Latinisms  that  mark  much  of  the  writing  of  his  age.  No 
more  lucid,  attractive  prose  was  written  in  England  during  the 
last  forty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

Of  Solitude 

10,  I.  Nunquam  minus  solus,  quam  cum  solus:  "Never  less 
alone  than  when  alone."  The  saying  is  generally  attributed  to 
Cicero,  but  Cowley  gives  it  to  Scipio. 

10,  5.  Scipio:  Publius  Cornelius  Scipio^  surnamed  Africanus 
(B.  C.  237-183),  the  most  famous  and  popular  of  the  generals  of 
early  Rome.  After  successful  campaigns  against  the  Carthagin- 
ians in  Spain,  he  carried  the  war  into  Africa,  and  in  the  great 
battle  of  Zama  defeated  the  Carthaginians,  and  so  ended  the  long 
struggle  between  Rome  and  Carthage.  In  the  year  185  B.  C.  he 
retired  from  public  life  and  spent  his  last  years  on  his  country  seat 
at  Liternum,  in  Campania. 


304        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

10,  15.  Seneca:  L.  Annaeus  Seneca,  Roman  philosopher  and 
statesman  (circa  5-65  A.  D.).  In  one  of  his  Epistles,  No.  86,  he 
describes  at  considerable  length  the  villa  of  Scipio,  dwelling  espe- 
cially upon  the  plainness  of  the  great  Scipio's  bath  as  compared  with 
the  luxurious  appointments  of  the  Roman  baths  in  his  day,  and 
tJien  exclaims — "Quanlce  nunc  aliqui  rusticitatis  damnant  Sci- 
pioncm   .    .    .   O  homincm  calamitosiim!  Nesciit  vivcre!" 

10,  22.  Hannibal.  The  great  Carthaginian  general  who,  after 
several  important  victories  over  the  Romans  in  Italy,  was  finally 
defeated  by  Scipio  in  Africa.  Cowley  thinks  him  unfortunate 
because  he  did  not,  like  Scipio,  retire  into  private  life  after  the 
battle  that  closed  his  career,  but  gave  his  attention  to  civil  reforms 
and  remained  in  public  life,  until,  in  order  to  avoid  surrender  to 
the  Romans,  he  ended  his  life  by  poison. 

10,  26.  Montaigne:  Michel  Eyquem,  Seigneur  de  Montaigne 
(1533-1592),  one  of  the  wisest  and  most  delightful  of  French 
writers,  the  real  founder  of  the  Essay  as  a  literary  form.  The 
passage  quoted  is  in  the  essaj'  On  Solitude,  Book  I,  Essay  38: 
"Respondons  d  rambition.  Que  c'est  ellc  mesme  qui  nous  dotme 
goiist  de  la  solitude:  car  que  fuit  cllc  tant  que  la  societe?^' 

11,  18.  Sic  ego  secretis  possum,  etc.  Quoted  from  Tibullus, 
XIII,  9. 

II,  31.  Odi,  et  amo,  etc.  Quoted  from  Catullus,  De  Amove 
Sua,  LXXXIII. 

13,  8.  O  vita,  stulto  longa,  sapienti  brevis!  This  seems  to  be  a 
modification  of  a  line  by  Publius  Syrus — 

"O  vita,  misero  longa,  felici  brevis.'^ 

"O  life,  long  to  the  unhappy,  to  the  happy  brief." 

Publius  (or  Publilius)  Syrus  was  a  late  Latin  writer,  about  50 
B.  C-  Short  sa>-ings  or  proverbs  by  him,  or  attributed  to  him 
were  popular  through  the  middle  ages. 

13,  18.  Methuselah  in  the  nine  hundred  and  sixty-ninth  year  of 
his  life.     Genesis  v,  27. 

14,  9.  O  qui  me  gelidis  in  vallibus  Haemi,  etc.  The  lines  are 
from  the  Second  Gcorgic  of  Virgil,  489-490.  The  pleasing  stanzas 
that  follow  this  essay,  in  sentiment  and  in  imagery,  are  evidently 
suggested  by  the  closing  passage  of  this  Georgic. 

Of  Myself 
16,  25.  These  precedent  discourses.     This  paper  stood  last  in 
the  collection  of  essays. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        305 

17,  16.  in  which  they  dispensed  with  me  alone:  i.e.,  which  they 
dispensed  with  in  my  case  only.  "He  was  wont  to  relate  that  he 
had  this  defect  in  memory  at  that  time,  that  his  teachers  could 
never  bring  it  to  retain  the  ordinary  rules  of  grammar.  However, 
he  supplied  that  want  by  conversing  with  the  books  themselves 
from  whence  those  rules  had  been  drawn.  That  was  no  doubt  a 
better  way,  though  much  more  difficult,  and  he  afterwards  found 
this  benefit  by  it,  that  having  got  the  Greek  and  Roman  languages, 
as  he  had  done  his  own,  not  by  precept  but  use,  he  practised  them 
not  as  a  scholar  but  as  a  native."     Sprat's  Memoir. 

17,  21.  An  ode,  which  I  made  when  I  was  but  thirteen  years 
■old.     This  is  the  ode  entitled  "The  Wish,"  beginning — 

"Lest  the  misjudging  world  should  chance  to  say." 

The  first  eight  stanzas,  though  somewhat  "boyish"  in  manner, 
describe  with  a  good  deal  of  vigor  the  various  types  of  char- 
acter of  which  he  is  not  envious,  as  the  Puritan,  the  School  Master, 
the  Justice,  the  Courtier,  the  Lawyer,  the  Singing  Man,  the  Court 
Beauty. 

18,  18.  The  conclusion  is  taken  out  of  Horace.  The  last  five 
lines  of  Cowley's  ode  are  a  free  rendering  of  Horace's  Ode,  Book  III, 
29,  lines  4iff. 

18,  31.  Spenser's  works:  i.e.,  Edmund  Spenser's  Faery  Queen. 

19,  9.  Went  to  the  university :  but  was  soon  torn  from  thence. 
Cowley  was  entered  at  Cambridge;  but  when  that  university 
passed  under  Puritan  influence,  he  left  Cambridge  for  Oxford, 
1643,  Oxford  then  being  the  seat  of  the  royalist  party. 

19,  14.  The  family  of  one  of  the  best  persons:  Henry  Jermyn, 
created  first  earl  of  St.  Albans  in  1660. 

19,  15.  The  court  of  one  of  the  best  princesses.  Henrietta 
Maria,  queen  of  Charles  First. 

20,  2.  In  business  of  great  and  honorable  trust.  Cowley  had 
charge  of  the  correspondence  in  cipher  between  Charles  and  his 
absent  queen. 

20,  8.  Well  then;  I  now  do  plainly  see:  the  opening  line  of  one 
of  the  lyrics  in  Cowley's  poem  The  Mistress,  which  he  entitled 
"The  Wish."  It  is,  as  he  says,  another  version  of  the  earlier 
poem  bearing  the  same  title. 

20,  19.  Thou  neither  great  at  court,  nor  in  the  war.  These  two 
stanzas  are  from  one  of  Cowley's  Pindaric  Odes  entitled  " Destiny." 

21,  12.  Ben:   i.e.,   Ben  Jonson,   dramatist  contemporary   with 


3o6        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Shakespeare.  He  was  accounted  in  his  own  day  the  first  poet  and 
critic  of  the  age. 

21,  17.  Take  thy  ease.     See  Luke  xii,  19. 

21,  22.  Non  ego  perfidiun  dixi  sacramentum.  "I  have  not  made 
a  false  promise." 

21,  27.  Nee  vos,  dulcissima  mtindi.  I  have  not  been  able  to 
locate  this  quotation. 

Queries  and  Suggestions 

I.  What  would  you  infer  from  the  two  essays  given  in  the  text 
as  to  the  temperament,  habits,  tastes,  culture,  of  Cowley  himself? 

How  far  do  you  judge  the  desire  for  retirement  and  solitude 
expressed  in  both  essays  was  native  to  him,  and  how  far  produced 
by  the  disappointments  and  vexations  of  his  career? 

;?.  Most  of  the  poetry  of  Cowley,  like  that  which  he  quotes  in 
these  essays,  was  in  the  form  of  odes;  what  is  an  ode? 

3.  Can  you  point  out  any  manifest  differences  in  diction  and  struc- 
ture between  the  style  of  these  essays  and  that  of  the  essays  of 
R'acon  which  precede  them  in  this  volume? 

RICHARD  STEELE  AND  JOSEPH  ADDISON 

Richard  Steele  and  Joseph  Addison  will  always  be  remembered 
together.  There  was  but  a  little  more  than  a  year's  difference  in 
their  ages;  they  were  close  friends  from  the  days  when  they  first 
met  in  the  Charterhouse  school;  they  were  associated  in  the  one 
form  of  literary  endeavor  on  which  their  fame  must  chiefly  rest. 

Steele  was  born  in  Dublin,  in  1672.  One  of  his  earliest  recollec- 
tions, as  he  says  in  a  characteristic  paper,  was  that  of  the  death  of 
his  father  and  the  grief  of  his  widowed  mother.  The  father  left 
no  fortune;  but  young  Steele  was  sent  up  to  the  Charterhouse 
school  in  London,  when  he  was  twelve  years  old,  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  a  distant  relative,  the  Duke  of  Ormond.  Two  years 
later  young  Joseph  Addison  entered  the  same  school.  The  father- 
less lad  from  Dublin  and  the  son  of  the  cultured  and  scholarly  dean 
Addison  of  Lichfield  cathedral  soon  became  fast  friends.  Addison 
was  always  much  the  better  scholar,  and  after  only  a  year's  stay  at 
the  Charterhouse,  he  went  up  to  Oxford,  in  1687,  and  was  entered 
at  Queen's  college.  It  was  not  until  three  years  later  that  Steele 
followed  him  and  was  matriculated  at  Christ's  Church.  But  the 
cloistered  life  of  the  university  had  little  attraction  for  the  active 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        307 

spirit  of  Steele;  after  some  years'  stay,  he  left  Oxford  without  a 
degree  and  entered  the  army  as  an  ensign  in  Lord  Cutt's  regiment 
of  foot-guards.  We  know  little  of  his  life  for  the  next  six  or  seven 
years,  save  that  he  was  for  some  time  secretary  to  Lord  Cutts, 
and  by  1700  is  spoken  of  as  Captain  Steele.  His  regiment  was 
ciuartered  in  London,  and  Steele's  military  duties  seem  to  have  left 
him  ample  leisure  to  become  acquainted  with  the  wit  and  fashion 
of  the  town.  His  life  in  the  Guards  and  as  a  young  fellow  about 
town  was  exposed  to  many  temptations;  his  first  book  is  proof  that 
he  felt  himself  not  always  proof  against  them.  This  curious  little 
volume  appeared  in  1701,  with  the  title  The  Christian  Hero,  an 
Argument  proving  that  no  Principles  bid  those  of  Religion  are  sufficient 
to  make  a  great  Man.  Steele  wrote  it,  he  said,  as  a  kind  of  confes- 
sion of  faith,  with  the  hope  that  by  setting  down  his  principles  in 
black  and  white  he  might  make  his  conduct  better  conform  to 
them.  From  which  we  should  infer,  I  think,  not  the  irregularity 
of  his  Hfe,  but  the  activity  of  his  conscience. 

The  Christian  Hero,  at  all  events,  had  one  good  result;  it  made 
Steele  in  love  with  the  pen.  He  had  found  his  vocation.  He 
turned  first  to  the  stage,  as  affording  the  readiest  opportunity  to 
a  young  fellow  of  literary  aspirations.  In  December  of  that  same 
year,  1701,  his  first  comedy.  The  Funeral,  was  produced  at  the 
Drury  Lane  theater,  and  by  the  aid  of  his  fellow  soldiers  of  the 
Guards,  scored  a  success.  It  is  a  satire  on  the  silly  fashion  of  hired 
mourning,  and  in  spite  of  its  lugubrious  title  contains  some  excel- 
lent humor.  A  second  comedy.  The  Lying  Lover,  the  plot  of  which 
was  suggested  by  Corneille's  Menteur,  appeared  early  in  1704,  and 
a  third — the  best  of  the  series — The  Te7ider  Husband,  in  1705.  It 
ought  to  be  said  that  Steele  did  not  in  these  plays  belie  the  princi- 
ples he  had  avowed  in  the  Christian  Hero.  Their  humor,  in  most 
refreshing  contrast  to  that  of  other  English  comedies  of  the  time, 
was  clean  and  wholesome  throughout. 

In  1706  Steele  decided  to  retire  from  the  army  and  give  himself 
to  literature  and  politics.  He  had  only  the  very  small  fortune 
left  him  at  her  death  by  the  wife  whom  he  had  married  the  previous 
year;  but  he  was  emboldened  by  the  success  of  his  plays,  and  de- 
termined to  live  thereafter  by  his  wits.  The  glimpses  w*^  get  of  him 
during  the  next  half  dozen  years  prove  that  the  venture  was  not 
always  very  successful.  Steele's  prudence  was  never  equal  to  his 
assurance;  and  he  never  was  quite  secure  from  the  bailiffs.  About 
a  year  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  he  began  to  pay  court  to  a 
Miss  Mary  Scurlock,  a  young  lady  of  wit,  beauty,  and  some  little 


joS        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

fortune.  The  wooing  was  not  long  adoing,  and  they  were  married 
in  September,  1707.  The  marriage  was  an  almost  ideally  happy 
one;  but  Mrs.  Steele,  who  was  evidently  much  the  better  economist 
of  the  two,  was  to  hear  a  good  man}'  explanations  of  her  husband's 
business  irregularities.  The  series  of  letters  and  notelets  written 
to  his  "Prue, "  both  before  and  after  the  marriage,  full  of  all  fond 
endearments  and  ingeneous  excuses,  form  quite  the  most  delight- 
ful set  of  domestic  correspondence  in  our  literary  history. 

All  through  those  years  Steele  had  kept  up  his  early  intimacy 
with  Addison,  and  by  1709  had  formed  the  acquaintance  of  Swift, 
Pope,  Arbuthnot,  and  most  of  the  lesser  wits  about  town.  It  was 
in  this  year  that  he  hit  upon  the  scheme  which  was  to  make  him 
famous,  and  to  introduce  a  new  and  distinct  form  into  English 
literature.  He  founded  the  Taller.  Two  years  before,  in  1707, 
Daniel  Defoe  had  started  his  Revie-d'  which  may  be  called  the  be- 
ginning of  political  journalism;  it  was  left  for  Steele  to  found  the 
first  literary  journal.  The  Taller  contained  one  short  essay  or 
sometimes  two  or  three  brief  letters,  usually  with  a  tag  of  notices 
and  advertisements.  Who  wrote  the  new  paper  no  one  knew  at 
first;  for  Steele  concealed  his  editorship  under  the  pseudonym  of 
Isaac  Bickerstaff,  a  name  that  Swift  had  made  the  town-talk  a  year 
before  by  a  clever  pamphlet  ridiculing  the  pretensions  of  a  notorious 
quack  and  almanac  maker.  The  Taller  was  to  be  issued  three  times 
a  week,  on  post  days,  and  was  at  first  sold  for  one  penny.  After 
the  twenty-fifth  number,  a  blank  page  was  added  for  correspondence, 
and  in  this  form  the  price  was  three  halfpence.  It  excluded  party 
politics  and  all  graver  questions  of  theology  or  religion.  Steele's 
purpose,  which  became  clearer  to  himself  as  he  proceeded,  was  to 
furnish  the  town  from  day  to  daj",  with  a  picture  of  the  more  enter- 
taining phases  of  manners  and  society  and  at  the  same  time  to 
correct  its  follies  and  vices  by  a  kindly  and  genial  satire.  "The 
general  purpose  of  this  paper"  he  said  in  the  dedication  to  the  first 
volume,  "is  to  expose  the  false  arts  of  life,  to  pull  off  the  disguises  of 
cunning,  vanity  and  affectation,  and  to  recommend  a  general  sim- 
plicity in  our  dress,  our  discourse,  and  our  behavior."  For  such  a 
task  no  one  could  have  been  better  fitted.  Nobody  knew  the  town 
better;  nobody  loved  it  more.  As  the  weeks  go  by,  we  find  in  the 
pages  of  the  Taller  a  constantly  changing  series  of  glimpses  of 
London  life — brief  stories,  sketches  of  humorous  characters,  satire 
on  fashionable  follies,  short  sermons  on  minor  morals,  all  filled 
with  Steele's  delightful  humor  and  told  in  his  easy  and  familiar 
manner.     For  all  which  we  have  t.'"  thank  Richard  Steele.    The 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        309 

plan  of  the  Taller  was  his  own  devising,  and  the  early  numbers  seem 
to  have  been  written  almost  exclusively  by  him.  He  did  not  con- 
sult Addison  before  starting  the  paper;  and  it  was  only  after  about 
five  months  that  he  received  any  very  substantial  aid  from  the  pen 
of  his  old  friend. 

By  this  time  Mr.  Addison  had  attained  considerable  fame  both 
in  literature  and  in  politics.  His  career  at  first,  indeed,  had  not 
seemed  one  of  very  brilliant  promise.  He  had  entered  the  university 
two  years  before  Steele;  he  remained  there  five  years  after  Steele 
had  left.  He  had  been  granted  a  fellowship  in  Magdalen  college 
and  seemed  contented  with  that  life  of  studious  ease.  In  1699, 
after  twelve  years  residence  in  Oxford,  he  received  from  Lord  Halifax 
a  pension  which  enabled  him  to  spend  nearly  three  years  on  the 
continent  in  travel  and  study.  In  1703,  as  his  pension  had  lapsed, 
and  the  war  with  France  made  further  residence  abroad  hazardous, 
he  came  back  to  London,  and  for  a  time  lived  quietly  in  humble 
lodgings  in  the  Haymarket.  But  in  1704  Marlborough  won  the 
famous  victory  of  Blenheim,  and  the  Whig  ministers  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  his  patron  Halifax,  invited  the  scholarly  Mr.  Addison  to 
celebrate  that  glorious  event  in  verse.  The  poem  of  The  Campaign, 
which  Addison  wrote  in  response  to  this  august  invitation,  will  be 
voted  dull  by  most  readers  of  to-day;  but  it  won  a  surprising  admira- 
tion then,  and  at  once  placed  Mr.  Addison  in  the  public  eye.  He 
was  rewarded  by  an  appointment  as  Under  Secretary  of  State;  in 
1707  was  elected  to  parliament,  and  was  never  out  of  ofBce  again 
so  long  as  he  lived.  Yet  nothing  Addison  ever  did  in  political  life 
would  have  preserved  his  name.  His  fame  will  always  rest  upon 
the  literary  work  he  did  in  association  with  Richard  Steele.  As 
Steele's  biographer,  Mr.  Aitken,  truly  says,  "The  world  owes  Addi- 
son to  Steele."  Thenceforward  the  best  work  of  either  man  was 
done  in  cooperation  with  the  other. 

Steele  brought  the  Taller  to  an  end  in  January,  171 1.  He  had, 
however,  no  thought  of  abandoning  that  form  of  literary  efifort;  on 
the  first  day  of  the  following  March  appeared  the  first  number  of  that 
more  famous  paper  the  Speclator.  In  plan  and  manner  the  Spectator 
was  similar  to  its  predecessor;  but  it  was  to  be  issued  daily.  It  is 
customary  to  speak  of  "Addison's  Speclalor";  but,  although  Addi- 
son was  associated  with  Steele  in  the  conduct  of  the  new  paper  from 
the  first,  it  seems  to  have  been  Steele's  venture.  The  contributions 
of  the  two  men,  also,  were  about  equal  in  number.  The  Spectator 
continued  under  this  joint  management  until  17 13,  when  Steele, 
-^chafing  under  the  agreement  to  keep  the  paper  out  of  politics,  with- 


3IO        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

drew  and  set  up  the  Guardian,  which  was  not  so  rigidly  closed  to 
party  discussion.  Addison  continued  the  Spectator  another  year, 
when  it  was  finally  abandoned,  in  17 14.  Steele  later  set  up  two  or 
three  periodicals,  each  of  which  ran  for  a  few  weeks  or  months;  but 
neither  he  nor  Addison  ever  succeeded  in  such  an  enterprise  alone. 
Addison  greatly  increased  his  contemporary  reputation  by  produc- 
ing, in  1 7 13,  that  now  forgotten  drama,  Cato,  and  continued  in 
public  life,  filling  one  office  after  another,  till  he  rose  to  his  highest 
dignity,  in  1717,  as  Secretary  of  State.     He  died  in  i)  19. 

Steele  survdved  his  friend  ten  years.  He  could  never  learn  the 
lesson  of  careful  prudence,  and  was  never  quite  free  from  financial 
troubles.  The  great  grief  of  his  life  fell  upon  him  when  his  wife 
died,  in  1716;  but  he  retained  much  of  the  genial  and  buoyant  spirit 
of  youth  till  the  end.  After  1720  he  retired  from  public  life  and 
spent  his  last  years  in  the  pleasant  old  town  of  Hereford,  or  over  the 
Welsh  border  in  Carmarthen,  where  he  died  in  1729. 

The  periodical  essay,  as  Steele  and  Addison  wrote  it,  was  a  dis- 
tinctly new  form  in  our  literature.  Brief  and  entertaining,  meant 
to  be  read  at  a  sitting,  it  is  ill-suited  to  the  discussion  of  matters 
serious  or  profound.  The  reader  of  to-day  will  probably  omit  most 
of  Addison's  careful  critical  and  philosophic  papers.  But  no  form 
could  be  better  fitted  for  the  depiction  of  the  lighter  and  more 
humorous  phases  of  daily  life.  The  Tatler  and  Spectator  mark  that 
quickened  interest  in  what  we  call  society  that  was  so  characteristic 
of  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  in  their  pages 
that  we  may  best  see  the  social  life  of  the  town  in  the  time  of  Queen 
Anne,  with  its  new  feeling  for  the  charm  of  manners,  its  rather 
shallow  vein  of  sentiment,  its  immense  admiration  for  wit,  good 
sense  and  good  breeding.  These  essays  were  written  for  the  town, 
for  the  club  and  the  drawing-room.  They  would  be  four  days  old 
before  they  could  reach  Edinburgh  or  Dublin;  but  they  could  be 
laid  damp  from  the  press  on  five  hundred  cofTee-house  tables  and 
be  read  before  nightfall  by  ten  thousand  people.  In  these  circum- 
stances literature  inevitably  became  polished,  urbane.  The  essay- 
ist must  not  be  too  much  in  earnest;  he  must  not  preach;  he  must  not 
lose  the  air  of  good  society,  the  dignified  case  of  good  conversation. 
To  read  much  in  the  Tatler  and  Spectator  is  to  take  a  lesson  in 
manners  as  well  as  in  literature. 

Now  in  this  form  of  writing  Steele  and  Addison  have  never  been 
surpassed.  Unlike  in  temperament  and  in  style,  each  was  the  com- 
plement of  the  other.  Steele  was  the  more  hearty,  spontaneous; 
Addison  the  more  thoughtful,  observant.     Steele's  humor  is  the 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        311 

■nore  exuberant;  Addison's  the  more  subtle,  delicate.  Steele  was 
a  warm-hearted  impulsive  man,  who  threw  himself  into  the  life  he 
described  with  generous  sympathy  for  all  its  humor  and  its  pathos; 
Addison  was  a  spectator  of  that  life  from  the  outside,  and  depicted 
it  with  a  suave  and  quiet  irtny.  Steele's  literary  style  is  often 
careless,  almost  slip-shod;  but  we  forget  these  imperfections  of  his 
work  in  our  love  for  the  man.  His  short  stories  often  have  a 
warmth  of  natural  feeling  that  Addison  never  could  command. 
Addison,  on  the  other  hand,  was  master  of  a  style  that  has  ever 
since  been  justly  admired  for  the  union  of  accuracy  with  perfect 
ease  and  grace.  The  most  careful,  almost  finical  of  writers,  his 
writing  yet  shows  no  trace  of  labor  or  effort.  His  manner  has 
never  been  better  characterized  than  in  the  famous  dictum  of 
Johnson:  "Whoever  would  attain  an  English  style,  familiar  but  not 
coarse,  elegant  but  not  ostentatious,  must  give  his  days  and  nights 
to  the  study  of  Addison." 

Finally,  in  the  writings  of  both  these  men,  underneath  all  external 
charm  of  manner,  is  a  broad  and  genial  humanity,  and  an  earnest 
moral  purpose.  They  were  good  men,  sincerely  intent  upon  making 
the  world  about  them  a  cleaner,  brighter,  more  joyous  place  to  live 
in.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  Tatler  and  Spectator 
rendered  a  better  service  to  their  age  than  all  the  sermons  preached 
in  the  reign  of  Anne;  for  the"  brought  morality  into  fashion. 

Recollections  of  Childhood.     Steele:  Tatler,  No.  181 

26,  15.  Manes:  Latin  term  for  the  spirits  of  the  departed;  hence 
sometimes  used,  as  here,  for  the  memory  of  the  dead. 

27,  31.  The  death  of  my  father.  Dobson,  in  his  volume  of 
Selections  from  Steele,  quotes  the  beautiful  passage  in  which  Thack- 
eray contrasts  the  simple  pathos  of  Steele  in  this  paragraph  with  the 
"lonely  serenity"  of  Addison's  mood  in  the  closing  passage  of  the 
essay  on  Westminster  Abbey:  "  The  third  whose  theme  is  death,  tpo, 
and  who  will  speak  his  moral  as  Heaven  teaches  him,  leads  you  up 
to  his  father's  coffin,  and  shows  you  his  beautiful  mother  weeping, 
and  himself  an  unconscious  little  boy  wondering  at  her  side.  His 
own  natural  tears  flow  as  he  takes  your  hand,  and  confidingly  asks 
for  your  sympathy;  'See  how  good  and  innocent  and  beautiful 
women  are '  he  says,  '  how  tender  little  children.  Let  us  love  these 
and  one  another,  brother — God  knows  we  have  need  of  love  and 
pardon ! ' ' ' — English  Humorists. 


312        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

29,  29.  The  first  object  my  eyes  ever  beheld  with  love.  Nothing 
is  known  with  reference  to  this  early  attachment. 

30,  10.  Garraway's  coffee-house.  The  coffee-house  was  one  of 
the  most  interesting  features  of  London  life  in  the  time  of  Queen 
Anne.  It  was  the  center  of  news,  the  resort  of  the  men  of  business, 
the  men  of  letters,  the  men  of  fashion.  Says  Misson,  a  traveler 
who  visited  London  in  17 19,  "These  coffee-houses  are  very  num- 
erous in  London  and  extremely  convenient.  You  have  all  manner 
of  news  there;  you  have  a  good  fire  which  you  may  sit  by  as  long 
as  you  please;  you  have  a  dish  of  coffee,  you  meet  your  friends  for 
the  transaction  of  business,  and  all  for  a  penny,  if  you  don't  care  to 
spend  more."  The  coffee-house  served  as  a  kind  of  club.  Steele 
gives  a  pleasant  and  gossiping  account  of  a  coffee-house  morning, 
in  Spectator  No.  49.  Although  any  coffee-house  was  open  to  every- 
body, naturally  many  of  them  came  to  be  patronized  especially  by 
men  of  particular  professions;  the  Grecian,  by  scholars.  Child's  by 
physicians,  Jonathan's  by  stock-brokers.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  Steele  proposed  to  date  all  Taller  papers  upon  poetry  from 
Will's  coffee-house,  which  had  been  the  favorite  resort  of  Dryden 
in  his  later  years.  Buttons',  near  by,  was  Addison's  headquarters. 
Garraway's,  mentioned  in  the  text,  was  patronized  almost  exclu- 
sively by  merchants;  Garraway,  who  opened  it  in  the  later  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  man  who  sold 
tea  by  retail  in  London. 

For  a  good  account  of  London  coffee-houses,  see  Ashton's  Social 
Life  in  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne,  where  over  500  are  named. 

A  Visit  to  a  Friend.     Steele  :  Tatler,  No.  95 

31,  29.  Mrs.  Mary.  Young  unmarried  women  were  commonly 
addressed  as  Mrs.  or  Mistress  in  Steele's  time.  The  term  Miss 
was  reserved  for  girls  under  ten,  or  for  older  ones  who  misbehaved. 

33>  30.  Her  baby:  i.e.,  her  doll.  The  word  doll,  with  its  present 
meaning  did  not  come  into  general  use  until  after  1750. 

34,  18.  Full-bottomed  periwigs.  Wigs  were  universally  worn  by 
gentlemen  in  the  time  of  Queen  Anne.  The  full-bottomed  wig  was 
one  in  which  the  hair  fell  in  rolls  or  curls  about  the  neck,  instead 
of  being  tied  in  a  cue,  as  in  the  "tie-wig."  The  periwig  attained  its 
greatest  size  at  this  time  and  sometimes  seems  to  have  been  costly. 
An  earlier  number  of  the  Taller,  54,  gives  an  account  of  a  petty 
quarrel,  where  Phillis,  angered  by  a  sharp  remark  from  her  lover, 
snatches  off  his  wig  and  throws  it  in  the  fire.     "There,"  said  he. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        313 

"thou  art  a  brave  termagant  jade;  do  you  know,  hussy,  that  wig 
cost  me  forty  guineas."  For  a  full  account  of  the  wig,  see  Ashton's 
Social  Life  in  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne,  Chap.  XIII. 

34,  19.  Open-breasted.  It  was  a  fashion  at  this  time  to  leave 
the  waist-coat  unbuttoned  nearly  down  to  the  waist,  in  order  to 
show  the  ruffled  shirt  underneath.  The  fashion  was  thought  to 
have  an  irresistible  effect  upon  the  ladies.  "A  sincere  heart  has  not 
made  half  so  many  conquests  as  an  open  waistcoat." — Taller,  151. 

35,  3.  A  point  of  war:  a  martial  roll  of  the  drum. 

35,  15.  Don  Belianis  of  Greece,  etc.  These  were  popular  chap- 
books  or  story-books,  founded  on  older  romances.  Don  Belianis 
was  one  of  the  continuations  of  the  Spanish  romance  of  Amadis 
of  Gaul.  Guy  of  Warwick  was  the  hero  of  a  romance  originating  in 
England  in  the  twelfth  century.  The  Seven  Champions  were 
national  heroes,  connected  in  a  romance  dating  from  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  four  probably  most  interesting  to  the  English  lad 
were  St.  George  of  England,  St.  Andrew  of  Scotland,  St.  Patrick  of 
Ireland,  and  St.  David  of  Wales.  The  other  three  were  St.  Denis 
of  France,  St.  Anthony  of  Italy,  and  St.  James  of  Spain. 

35,  22.  John  Hickerthrift :  a  legendary  strong  man,  whose  adven- 
tures were  recounted  in  several  chap-books.  A  character  like  that 
of  Jack  the  Giant  killer. 

35,  23.  Bevis  of  Southampton :  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  Arthurian 
romance.     His  story  was  put  into  a  popular  prose  form  about  1650. 

Mr.  Bickerstaff's    Three    Nephews.     Steele:  Taller,  No.  30 

36,  25.  The  lions,  the  tombs,  Bedlam.  Lions  were  kept  on  exhi- 
bition in  the  Tower  of  London.  "To  see  the  lions"  thus  early 
became  a  popular  phrase.  In  1703  there  were  "two  lions,  two 
lionesses,  and  a  cub."  The  tombs  were  those  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  then,  as  now,  one  of  the  sights  of  London.  See  Addison's 
famous  paper,  Spectator,  No.  26,  en  p.  48  of  this  volume.  Bedlam 
was  the  St.  Bartholomew's  hospital  for  the  insane.  It  is  a  curious 
comment  on  the  temper  of  the  age  that  Bedlam  should  have  been 
thought  one  of  the  sights  of  London,  visited  daily  by  crowds  for 
entertainment,  with  only  the  restriction  that,  "No  person  can  be 
admitted  to  come  or  stay  as  a  spectator  after  sunsetting." 

37,  12.  Taws:  marbles  used  as  shooters. 

37,  21.  Provident  conduct.  Steele  perhaps  naturally  expressed 
admiration  for  this  virtue  in  which  he  was  himself  most  deficient. 

38,  13.  A  citizen:  i.e.,  a  resident  of  the  city  (of  London),  and 
therefore  assumed  to  be  in  trade. 


314        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Ned  Softly.  Addison:  Tatlcr,  No.  163 
40,  1.  (Motto.)  The  motto  is  translated  in  tlie  edition  of  1764: 
"  Suffenus  has  no  more  wit  than  a  mere  clown  when  he  attempts  to 
write  verses;  and  yet  he  is  never  happier  than  when  he  is  scribbling, 
so  much  does  he  admire  himself  and  his  compositions.  And, 
indeed,  this  is  the  foible  of  every  one  of  us;  for  there  is  no  man  living 
who  is  not  a  Suffenus  in  one  thing  or  another."  Catullus,  De 
Suffeno,  XXII,  14/. 

40,  16.  A  late  paper  of  yours :  No.  155  of  the  Tatlcr,  in  which  Mr. 
BickerstafT  describes  a  troublesome  acquaintance  who  pestered 
him  for  news  from  the  war. 

40,  19.  A  gazette.  An  official  publication  established  in  1665 
and  continued  to  the  present  day,  giving  lists  of  appointments,  pro- 
motions, and  official  reports.  In  Addison's  time  it  was  occupied 
mostly  with  foreign  news  from  the  armies. 

40,  20.  Our  armies:  on  the  continent.  The  great  war  of  the 
Spanish  Succession  began  in  1702  and  was  not  concluded  until  17 13. 

41,  2.  Waller.  Edmund  Waller  (1666-1687),  was  generally 
credited,  in  Addison's  time,  with  having  done  much  to  introduce 
smoothness  and  grace  into  English  verse.  Some  of  his  compli- 
mentary lyrics,  such  as  Ned  Softly  admires,  have  seldom  been  sur- 
passed in  their  kind,  as  the  "Go  lovely  rose"  and  "Lines  to  a 
Girdle." 

41,  9.  Gothic.  The  word  is  generally  used  in  the  early  eighteenth 
century  as  a  synonym  for  rude,  inelegant. 

41,  10.  Quibbles,  which  are  so  frequent  in  the  most  admired  of 
our  English  poets:  that  is,  in  the  poets  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
such  as  Donne,  Herbert,  Crashaw,  and  Cowley. 

41,  19.  Sonnet.  The  term  is  frequently  applied  in  the  writings 
of  Addison's  time  to  any  short  lyric. 

42,  8.  Roscommon's  translation:  Wentworth  Dillon,  fourth 
Earl  of  Roscommon,  whose  translation  of  Horace's  Ari  oj Poetry  was 
published  in  1680. 

Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  in  Westminster  Abbey.     Addison: 
Spectator,  No.  329 

44,  17.  (Motto.) 

"For  we  must  go 
Where  Numa  and  where  Ancus  went  before." 

Horace,  Epistles  I,  6.  ri. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        315 

44,  19.  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley.  The  most  familiar  and  delight- 
ful of  all  the  characters  Steele  and  Addison  have  created  for  us. 
Perhaps  no  personage  in  English  fiction  is  better  known.  The 
original  conception  of  the  old  knight  seems  to  have  been  Steele's; 
but  Addison  developed  the  character  with  much  more  subtle  humor, 
though  with  a  tinge  of  malicious  satire  not  seen  in  Steele's  more 
genial  picture.  This  is  one  of  the  latest  of  the  Coverley  papers; 
the  account  of  the  knight's  death  followed  a  few  months  later. 

44,  28.  Baker's  Chronicle :  "A  chronicle  of  the  Kings  of  England 
from  the  time  of  the  Romans'  Government  unto  the  Death  of  King 
James.     By  Sir  Richard  Baker,  1643." 

44,  29.  Sir  Andrew  Freeport:  the  person  "of  next  considera- 
tion" to  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  in  the  Spectator  Club,  introduced 
in  Spectator,  No.  2. 

45,  6.  Widow  Trueby's  water.  This,  and  many  of  the  nostrums 
of  that  day  and  of  ours,  probably  owed  its  efficacy  largely  to  the 
alcohol  they  contained.  Accounts  of  the  quack  medicines  of  the 
day  ma}'  be  found  in  the  Tatler,  No.  224,  and  in  Spectator,  Nos. 
113,  120. 

45,  20.  The  sickness  being  at  Dantzick :  the  plague  which  raged 
through  Prussia  and  Lithuania  in  1709. 

46,  13.  A  roll  of  their  best  Virginia :  tobacco  made  up  in  rolls  for 
smoking. 

46,  19.  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel.     See  note  on  line  27,  page  50. 

46,  23.  Dr.  Busby.  Headmaster  of  Westminster  School  from  1640 
to  1695.  Like  that  other  famous  schoolmaster.  Dr.  Boyer,  head- 
master of  Christ's  Hospital  School  who  used  to  flog  Coleridge  and 
Lamb,  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  later,  Dr.  Busby  was 
proverbially  severe  in  his  discipline. 

46,  26.  The  little  chapel  on  the  right  hand :  St.  Edmund's. 

46,  29.  The  Lord  who  had  cut  off  the  King  of  Morocco's  head : 
Sir  Bernard  Brocas.  The  crest  in  his  coat  of  arms  was  a  Moor's 
head;  but  the  story  referred  to  in  the  text  is  probably  legendary. 

46,  3:.  The  statesman  Cecil  on  his  knees:  William  Cecil,  Lord 
Burleigh,  the  great  Secretary  of  State  to  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  is 
represented  as  kneeling  before  the  tomb  of  his  wife  and  daughter. 

46,  34.  Martyr  .  .  .  who  died  by  the  piick  of  a  needle: 
Lady  Elizabeth  Russell,  died  i6or.  She  is  represented  as  pointing 
with  her  forefinger  to  a  skull  at  her  feet;  hence  the  legend  that  she 
died  from  a  prick  of  a  needle. 

47,  7.  The  two  Coronation-chairs.  They  stand  in  the  chapel  of 
Edward  the  Confessor,  behind  the  choir.     One  is  said  to  have  been 


3i6        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

that  of  Edward  the  Confessor;  every  sovereign  of  England  since 
Edward  has  sat  in  it  when  crowned.  The  other  was  made  for  Mary, 
when  she  and  her  husband  William  were  jointly  crowned  king  and 
queen  of  England,  in  1689. 

47,  Q.  The  stone  .  .  .  brought  from  Scotland:  the  "stone  of 
Scone"  fabled  to  be  that  on  which  Jacob  rested  his  head  at  Bethel. 
After  various  alleged  migrations,  it  was  brought  from  Scotland 
to  London  by  Edward  T,  in  1 296. 

47,  15.  Pay  his  forfeit:  i.e.,  for  sitting  down  in  the  chair. 

47,  16.  Trepanned:  more  properly  spelled  trapanned;  meaning 
trapped.  It  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  verb  trepan,  to 
remove  a  piece  of  the  skull. 

47,  19.  Will  Wimble:  a  whimsical  friend  of  Sir  Roger,  described 
charmingly  in  Spectator,  No.  109. 

47,  22.  Edward  the  Third's  sword.  This  stands  between  the 
two  Coronation  chairs. 

47,  24.  The  Black  Prince :  eldest  son  of  Edward  Third,  who  died 
before  his  father,  in  1376.  His  tomb  is  not  in  the  abbey,  but  in  the 
cathedral  of  Canterbury. 

47,  30.  Touched  for  the  evil.  It  was  the  general  belief  that  the 
scrofula  could  be  cured  by  the  touch  of  the  royal  hand.  On  this 
account  it  was  called  "the  king's  evil."  The  practice  of  "touch- 
ing" had  fallen  into  disuse  during  the  reign  of  William,  but  was 
revived  bj^  Anne  as  indicating  her  legitimate  and  divine  right  to  the 
throne.  She  is  said  to  have  "touched"  over  two  hundred  people 
in  one  day,  among  them  the  young  Samuel  Johnson.  But  the 
practice  ceased  with  her. 

47,  34.  One  of  our  English  kings  without  a  head :  Henry  Fifth. 
The  head,  which  was  of  silver,  was  stolen  in  the  time  of  Henry 
Eighth. 

Reflections  in  Westminster  Abbey.     Addison: 

Spectator,  No.  26 

48,  24.  (Motto.)     Horace,  Odes,  I,  4,  13-17: 

"With  equal  foot,  rich  friend,  impartial  fate 
Knocks  at  the  cottage  and  the  palace  gate; 
Life's  span  forbids  thee  to  extend  thy  cares, 
And  stretch  thy  hopes  beyond  thy  3'ears; 
Night  soon  will  seize,  and  you  must  quickly  go 
To  storied  ghosts  and  Pluto's  house  below." 
Trans,  by  Creech. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        317 

49,  19.  In  Holy  Writ:  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  V,  12-13:  "Like  as 
when  an  arrow  is  shot  at  a  mark  it  parteth  the  air,  which  imme- 
diately Cometh  together  again,  so  that  a  man  cannot  know  where  it 
went  through,  even  so  we  in  like  manner,  as  soon  as  we  were  born 
began  to  draw  to  our  end." 

50,  14.  The  present  war:  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession. 
50.  18.  Blenheim.     The  duke  of  Marlborough,  at  the  head  of  the 

allied  armies,  had  won  this  "famous  victory"  over  the  French,  at 
Blenheim  in  Bavaria,  Aug.  13,  1704. 

50,  27.  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel :  English  admiral.  His  fleet  was 
wrecked  on  the  shore  of  the  Scilly  islands,  and  he  was  drowned  1707. 

Queries  and  Suggestions 

1.  Examine  carefully  one  of  Addison's  essays  with  reference  to 
its  plan,  structure  of  paragraphs,  sentence  form,  diction. 

2.  Point  out  any  examples  of  carelessness  in  the  writing  of  Steele 
that  you  would  not  be  likely  to  find  in  that  of  Addison. 

3.  The  style  of  Steele  and  Addison  is  sometimes  said  to  have 
"ease";     what  is  meant  by  ease  as  a  quality  of  style? 

4.  Write  a  simple  story  after  the  manner  of  Steele's  "Account  of 
a  Visit  to  a  Friend." 

5.  Write  a  Spectator  paper  on  any  incident  in  your  own  observa- 
tion or  any  fashion  or  custom  of  to-day. 

6.  An  Evening  in  a  London  coffee-house  in  the  time  of  Queen 
Anne. 

7.  Some  Impressions  of  the  character  of  Richard  Steele  derived 
from  reading  his  papers. 

8.  Some  differences  in  character  and  temperament  between  Steele 
and  Addison  that  you  see  in  the  papers  you  have  read. 

9.  Have  you  read  any  recent  writing  in  books  or  magazines,  say 
anything  written  within  the  last  thirty  years,  that  reminds  you  of 
these  essays,  either  in  matter  or  manner. 

10.  Do  you  think  that  such  essays  as  those  in  the  Taller  and  Spec- 
tator would,  or  would  not,  be  popular  to-day?  Give  the  reasons 
for  your  opinion. 

CHARLES  LAMB 

The  best  biography  of  Charles  Lamb  is  to  be  read  in  his  essays 
and  letters.     No  writer  takes  us  more  completel}'  into  his  confidence.    \ 
The  result  is.  that  in  spite  of  all  his  whimsicality  and  paradox,  no 


3i8        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

vvritcr  is  better  known,  and  that,  in  spite  of  all  his  failings,  no  one  is 
better  loved. 

The  main  facts  of  Lamb 's  outward  life  can  be  brietly  stated.  The 
son  of  a  servant  of  an  advocate  in  the  Inner  Temple,  he  got  his 
early  training  in  Christ's  Hospital  School,  which  he  has  described  so 
vividly  in  two  of  his  essays.  Here  he  first  met  that  "inspired  charity 
boy,"  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  who  was  to  he  his  closest  life-long 
friend.  He  was  imable  to  go  on  from  the  school  to  the  university, 
as  his  friend  Coleridge  did,  but  at  the  age  of  seventeen  took  his  place 
as  a  clerk  in  the  India  House.  Tor  thirty-three  years  he  found  his 
daily  work  there,  at  "the  desk's  dull  wood,"  till  he  was  retired  by 
the  Company  on  a  pension,  in  1825. 

The  tragedy  of  his  life  fell  upon  him  in  1796,  when  his  only  sister, 
Mary,  in  a  temporar\-  iit  of  insanit)',  snatched  a  knife  from  the  table 
and  stabbed  her  mother  to  the  heart.  The  old  father  died  shortly 
thereafter;  another  brother  seems  never  to  have  been  of  much  help  to 
any  one  but  himself;  and  Charles  and  his  sister  were  left  to  front  life 
alone.  He  had  been  in  a  mad-house  himself  for  six  weeks,  some 
>ears  before;  but  fortunately  never  had  any  return  of  mental  disease. 
JNIary,  however,  was  subject  to  periods  of  mental  alienation  all  her 
days,  and  it  was  the  sad  dutj'  of  Lamb  to  see  that  she  was  placed  in 
a  hospital,  for  weeks  at  a  time,  at  intervals  of  a  few  months,  all  his 
life  long. 

Lamb  cherished  the  intimacy  of  his  few  old  and  tried  friends, 
especially  Coleridge  and  the  Wordsworths,  to  whom  his  most  intimate 
letters  are  written;  and  he  sought  to  enliven  the  loneliness  and  anx- 
iety of  his  life  by  diawing  about  him  a  company  of  newer  acciuaint- 
ances  who  shared  his  tastes  or  tickled  his  humor.  No  more  inter- 
esting group  of  people  could  have  been  found  in  London  than  those 
who  used  to  forgather  in  Lamb's  rooms  on  his  "Wednesday  even- 
ings"— Hazlitt,  (iodwin,  Burney,  Procter,  Hunt,  Ayrton,  Crabb 
Robinson,  and  on  some  rare  occasions,  Coleridge  himself.  There 
must  have  been  abundance  of  good  talk  there;  but  no  talk,  we  may 
be  sure,  more  wise  or  witty  than  that  which  fell  from  the  stuttering 
lips  of  Lamb  himself — sparkling  with  puns,  filled  with  droll  epithet 
or  allusion,  passing  abruptly  from  gay  to  grave,  enlivened  with 
light  fancy,  and  all  sufl'uscd  with  a  gentle  and  kindly  humanity. 
For  Lamb  is  never  to  be  thought  of  as  that  dreary  person  the  pro- 
fessional humorist.  "His  serious  conversation,  like  his  serious 
writing,"  said  Hazlitt,  "is  his  best.  His  jests  scald  like  tears;  and 
he  probes  a  question  with  a  play  upon  words." 

On  the  "'hole,  the  impression  which  the  record  of  Lamb's  life 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        319 

leaves  upon  us  is  that  of  quiet,  cheerrul  endurance,  almost  heroic. 
He  never  complained  nor  quarreled  with  his  lot.  It  is  only  now  and  V 
then  in  his  letters,  oftenest  to  Coleridge  or  the  Wordsworths,  that 
we  get  some  note  of  weariness  or  anxiety,  and  then  usually  in  a  hope- 
ful tone.  "  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  Lambs,"  he  wrote  _ 
to  Wordsworth  once,  in  mood  half  humorous  and  half  pathetic. 
In  his  latest  years,  lone  and  broken  in  health,  the  circle  of  his  old 
companions  almost  all  gone,  his  painful  efforts  to  maintain  in  age  the 
cheerful  spirits  of  youth  seemed  to  the  rigor  of  Thomas  Carlyle 
frivolous  and  unbecoming;  but  no  one  who  ever  really  knew  him 
could  judge  him  harshly.  The  death  of  Coleridge  broke  down  his 
spirits.  He  went  about  saying  to  himself,  "Coleridge  is  dead, 
Coleridge  is  dead."  and  a  few  weeks  later  he  followed  his  old  familiar 
friend.     He  died,  Dec.  27,  1834. 

Lamb's  literary  career  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  begun  until  he 
was  well  on  in  middle  life.  In  his  early  years  he  had  published  a  few 
short  poems  and  the  prose  tale  of  Rosainitnd  Gray;  he  had  written  a 
tragedy,  John  Woodvil,  which  was  never  acted,  and  a  farce,  Mr.  11. , 
which  was  acted  and  promptly  damned.  Much  more  important 
was  the  volume  of  Specimens  of  English  Dramatic  Poets,  y)ub- 
lished  in  1808,  which  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  interest  in  our 
Elizabethan  drama.  He  had  made  other  occasional  contributions 
to  the  Reviews;  yet  the  two  volumes  of  his  Complete  Works  issued  in 
1818,  which  include  nearly  all  he  had  written  up  to  that  date, 
probably  contain  little  that  would  have  sufficed  to  keep  his  name 
alive.  It  was  not  until  1820,  when  he  was  nearly  forty-five  years 
old,  that  he  really  found  himself.  In  that  year  he  sent  to  the 
London  Magazine  the  first  of  the  Essays  over  the  pseudonym  of 
Elia.  In  1823  the  essay's  thus  far  written,  twenty-eight  in  number, 
were  collected  and  printed  in  a  volume.  Eight  years  later  another 
collection,  the  Last  Essays  of  Elia  was  published,  making  fifty  in  all. 

The  Elia  essays  are  the  most  original  and  intimate  series  of  humor-  _/ 
ous  papers  in  our  literature.  They  are  Charles  Lamb  talking  with  / 
us;  he  puts  us  in  the  mood  of  friendly  acquaintance  at  once.  It  is 
not  easy  to  describe  such  a  unique  personality  as  that  revealed  in 
these  essays,  one  in  which  the  elements  are  so  subtly  and  so  humor- 
ously mingled.  We  can  enumerate  certain  characteristics  of  Lamb 
that  constantly  appear  in  his  writing — his  quaint  seventeenth- 
century  diction,  his  multifarious  allusion,  his  love  of  paradox  and 
oddity,  his  dislike  of  stupid  and  conventional  folk,  his  humorous 
application  of  lofty  metaphor  and  epithet,  his  constant  play  of 
imagination,  his  moods  of  grave  and  serious  thought,  the  momen- 


320        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

tary  gleams  of  pathos  seen  through  his  waggery,  his  quick  apprecia- 
tion of  beauty,  the  warmth  of  kindly  human  feeling  underneath  all 
he  says.  Yet  no  such  analysis  can  quite  explain  the  charm  of  these 
papers.  No  one  of  them  could  by  any  possibility  have  been  written 
by  any  one  else  than  Charles  Lamb.  We  never  saw  anything  else 
that  really  reminded  us  of  them. 

The  three  essays  included  in  this  volume  can  give  only  an  inade- 
quate idea  of  the  range  of  his  humor.  The  first  shows  him  in 
serene  and  thoughtful  mood,  and  illustrates  admirably  that  elevated 
and  imaginative  diction  which  his  long  and  loving  study  of  our 
seventeenth  century  prose  writers — especially  Taylor  and  Browne- 
had  made  his  natural  style.  The  second  is  the  most  familiar  of  his 
essays  of  pure  drollery.  The  third  is  perhaps  the  most  beautiful 
paper  he  ever  wrote,  a  piece  of  English  in  simplicity  and  tenderness 
quite  unsurpassed  in  the  prose  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

A  Quakers'  Meeting 

In  his  Essaj^s,  Lamb  is  never  primarily  a  jester.  His  conversa- 
tion, doubtless,  in  his  brightest  hours,  was  sprinkled  thickly  with 
puns — of  which  he  was  a  very  great  master,  and  with  all  sorts  of 
unexpected  quips  and  odd  turns  of  phrase.  It  is  in  his  famihar 
letters  that  we  get  some  notion  of  his  talk,  now  sparkling  with  wit, 
now  droll  and  waggish,  now  humorously  impudent — talk  as  Hazlitt 
said,  "like  snapdragon."  But  in  the  Essays  the  humor  has  usually 
some  background  of  large  human  interest,  and  often,  as  in  this 
essay  on  A  Quakers'  Meeting,  passes  insensibly  into  a  tone  of  grave 
and  serious  reflection.  There  could  be  no  better  example,  both  in 
manner  and  matter,  of  the  charm  the  early  seventeenth-century 
prose  writers  had  for  Lamb  than  this  essay,  with  its  stately  and 
solemn  imagery  and  the  dignified  amplitude  of  its  style.  It  might 
have  been  written  by  that  master  whom  I  think  Lamb  liked  best, 
Sir  Thomas  Browne. 

Yet  in  such  an  essay  there  is  no  conscious  imitation.  On  the 
contrary.  Lamb  is  never  more  genuinely  himself.  As  he  himself 
says,  in  the  Preface  to  the  Lasl  Essays  ofElia,  his  writings  "had  not 
been  his,  if  they  had  been  other  than  such;  and  better  it  is,  that  a 
writer  should  be  natural  in  a  self-pleasing  quaintness,  than  to  affect 
a  naturalness  (so-called)  that  should  be  strange  to  him." 

Two  of  Lamb's  best  friends  were  Quakers,  Charles  Lloyd  and 
Bernard  Barton.    And  he  had  at  one  time  at  least  a  passing  fancy 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        321 

for  a  young  Quaker  girl,  Hester  Savory,  who  died  in  1803,  and  on 
whom  Lamb  wrote  the  touching  verses  beginning — 

"When  maidens  such  as  Hester  die 

Their  place  he  may  not  well  supply, 
Though  ye  among  a  thousand  try, 
With  vain  endeavor." 

53.  (Motto.)  From  a  dramatic  pastoral  entitled  "Love's 
Dominion."  Richard  Flecknoe  was  a  poor  poet  of  the  time  of 
Charles  IL,  whom  Dryden  despised,  and  satirized  in  his  "Mac- 
Flecknoe." 

53,  23.  Before  the  winds  were  made.  The  origin  of  this  quota- 
tion has  not  been  traced. 

54,  2.  Pour  wax  into  the  little  cells  of  thy  ears.  Ulysses  poured 
wax  into  the  ears  of  his  sailors  that  they  might  not  hear  the  songs  of 
the  Sirens.     See  Odyssey,  Book  XH. 

54,  10.  Boreas  and  Cesias  and  Argestes  loud.  See  Paradise 
Lost,  X,  699. 

54,  26.  The  Carthusian.  The  monks  of  the  Carthusian  order — • 
so  called  because  their  first  seat  was  at  La  Chartreuse,  in  France — 
are  bound  to  silence. 

55,  I.  Zimmerman:  Johann  G.  von  Zimmerman,  a  Swiss  phy- 
sician, author  of  a  treatise  "On  Solitude." 

55,  5.  Or  xmder  hanging  mountains,  etc.  See  Pope,  Ode  on 
St.  Cecilia's  Day. 

55,  14.  Sands,  ignoble  things,  etc.  See  Francis  Beaumont 
(1586-1616),  Lines  on  the  Tombs  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

55,  21.  How  reverend  is  the  view  of  these  hushed  heads. 
This  is  freely  quoted  from  some  lines  of  a  description  of  York 
minster  in  the  second  act  of  the  drama,  The  Mourning  Bride,  by 
Congreve  (1670-1729):  "  How  reverend  is  the  face  of  this  tall  pile 
.  .  .  Looking  tranquillity."  Samuel  Johnson  once  pronounced 
this  passage  by  Congreve  "the  finest  poetical  passage  he  had  ever 
read." 

55,  31.  Fox  andDewsbury:  George  Fox  (1624-1691),  founder 
of  the  Society  of  Friends;  William  Dewsbury,  one  of  his  first 
preachers. 

56,  II.  Penn:  William  Penn  (i 644-1 718),  founder  of  the 
Pennsylvania  colony,  and  most  famous  of  the  early  Friends. 

56,  17.  Sewel's  History:  written  originally  in  Dutch,  and  trans- 
lated into  English,  1722. 


322        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

56,  25.  James  Naylor  (1617-1669):  perhaps  not  quite  so  mild 
and  amiable  a  person  as  Lamb  imagined  him.  He  thought  himself 
the  reincarnation  of  Christ,  and  attempted  to  ride  into  Bristol 
naked  because,  as  he  said,  Christ  had  ridden  into  Jerusalem. 

57,  4.  John  Woolman:  an  American  Friend  who  passed  most  of 
his  life  in  New  Jersey.  His  Journal  has  been  edited  with  an 
admirable  introduction  by  Whittier. 

57,  32.  From  head  to  foot  equipt  in  iron  mail:  from  the  poem 
beginning  "Tis  said  that  some  have  died  for  love." 

58,  16.  The  Jocos  Risus-que :  "jests  and  smiles." 

Faster  than  the  Loves  fled  the  face  of  Dis  at  Enna.  It  was 
the  classic  myth  that  Proserpine  was  carried  to  the  lower  world  by 
Dis — or  Pluto — while  she  was  gathering  flowers  in  the  vale  of  Enna. 
58,  23.  Caverns  of  Trophonius:  one  of  the  Greek  oracles,  the 
responses  from  which  were  proverbially  depressing,  making  those 
who  consulted  it  silent  or  melancholy. 

58,  2,3-  Forty  feeding  like  one :  from  Wordsworth's  lines  Written 
in  March. 

59,  4.  Their  Whitsun-conferences :  "yearly  meetings." 

59,  7.  The  Shining  Ones.  "Here  they  were  within  sight  of 
the  city  they  were  going  to;  also  here  met  them  some  of  the  Inhabi- 
tants thereof.  For  in  this  land  the  Shining  Ones  commonly 
walked,  because  it  was  upon  the  Borders  of  Heaven."  See  Bunyan's 
Pilgrim's  Progress;  last  chapter  of  Part  First. 

A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig 
Note  the  extreme  difference  in  theme  and  temper  between  the 
preceding  essay  and  this  one.     Yet  there  is  in  both  the  same  vivid 
imagination,    the   same   wealth   of   allusion,   the   same   quaint   or 
humorous  originality  of  phrase. 

59,  9.  My  friend  M. :  Thomas  Manning,  an  eccentric  and  roving 
genius,  who  was  one  of  Lamb's  most  congenial  friends.  He  was 
in  his  earlier  years  a  mathematical  tutor  in  Cambridge,  where 
Lamb  met  him,  in  1799.  In  1806  he  left  England  and  spent  over 
ten  years  in  China  and  India.  He  was  the  first  Englishman  who 
ever  penetrated  to  the  sacred  city  of  Lhassa  in  Tartary.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  he  may  have  found  in  China  the  story  on  which 
this  essay  is  based.  Lamb's  humor  is  never  more  irresistible  than 
in  his  letters  to  Manning. 

59,  13.  Their  great  Confucius.  Of  course  this  reference  to  the 
Chinese  philosopher  and  the  statements  about  the  "Chinese  manu- 
script" are  all  of  Lamb's  invention. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes         323 

63,  8.  OurLocke:  JohnLocke  (1632-1704),  author  of  the  famous 
Essay  Concerning  the  Human  Understanding. 
63,  24.  Mundus  edibilis :  "edible  world." 
63,  25.  Princeps  obsoniorum :  "chief  of  dainties." 
63,  29.  Amor  immimditiae :  "love  of  dirt";  which  may  be  sup- 
posed to  be  the  original  sin  of  the  race  of  swine. 

63,  S2-  Praeludium:  "prelude." 

64,  22.  Radiant  jellies — shooting  stars :  an  allusion  to  the  super- 
stition that  a  kind  of  mineral  jelly  could  be  found  where  a  shooting 
star  had  fallen  to  the  ground. 

64,  30.  Ere  sin  could  blight  or  sorrow  fade,  etc.  See  Coleridge's 
Epitaph  on  an  Infant. 

65»  33-  Tame  villatic  fowl.  See  Milton's  Samson  Agonistes, 
line  1695. 

66,  3.  Like  Lear:  "I  gave  you  all."     See  Lear,  Act  II,  scene  4. 

66,  15.  Over  London  bridge:  one  of  Lamb's  intentional  mysti- 
fications; Christ's  Hospital  Schooi  was  not  over  London  bridge  from 
his  home. 

67,  19.  St.  Omer's:  another  of  Lamb's  inventions;  St.  Omer's 
is  a  Jesuit  college  in  France,  and  of  course  Lamb  was  never  there. 

67,  22.  Per  fiagellationem  extremam:  "capital  punishment  by 
whipping." 

Dream  Children 

The  most  intimate  and  beautiful  of  all  Lamb's  essays.  Here 
humor  passes  into  pure  pathos.  It  was  written  shortly  after  the 
death  of  his  brother  John,  when  Lamb  felt  himself  alone  in  the  world 
with  poor  Mary.  At  such  a  time  his  thoughts  naturally  turned  to 
the  memories  of  his  early  life,  or  to  revery  of  all  that  might  have 
been  had  not  fate  denied  him  the  affection  of  wife  or  child.  Surely 
no  man  loved  children  better  than  this  jesting  old  bachelor. 

The  style,  quite  unlike  that  of  his  other  essays,  is  too  sincere  and 
tender  to  admit  any  affectations,  even  that  "self-pleasing  quaint- 
ness"  which  seems  so  natural  in  most  of  his  writing.  In  its  purity 
and  simplicity  it  reminds  us  of  the  best  passages  of  the  Scripture 
narratives. 

68,  5.  Their  great-grandmother  Field.  Lamb's  grandmother, 
Mary  Field,  lived  for  many  years  in  Blakesware,  the  manor  house 
of  the  Plumer  family.  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  "great  house" 
and  Lamb's  early  memories  of  it,  see  the  two  essays  "Blakesmore 

in  H shire,"  and  "Mackery  End  in  Hertfordshire."     The  great 

bouse  was  not  in  Norfolk,  as  Lamb  says  in  this  essay,  but  in  Hert- 


324        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

fordshire.  Another  charming  picture  of  Lamb's  grandmother  is 
given  in  one  of  his  earUest  poems,  "The  Grandame." 

70,  33.  John  L. :  John  Lamb,  brother  of  Charles,  who  died  in 
October,  182 1,  only  a  few  weeks  before  this  essay  was  written. 
He  was  a  clerk  in  the  South  Sea  House.  For  a  fuller  account  of 
him,  read  the  essay  "My  Relations,"  in  which  Lamb  speaks  of  him 
as  his  "cousin,  James  Elia." 

72,  2.  I  courted  the  fair  Alice  W n.     Several  references  in 

Lamb's  writing  point  to  a  girl  to  whom  he  might  have  paid  court 
had  not  the  fatal  malady  of  himself  and  his  sister  forbade  him  all 
thought  of  marriage.  In  his  earliest  verse,  written  twenty-five 
years  before  this  essay,  he  refers  in  a  tone  of  tender  but  hopeless 
resignation  to  some  "Anna,  mild-eyed  maid."  The  character  of 
the  heroine  of  his  early  story,  Rosamund  Gray,  is  evidently  sug- 
gested by  the  same  person;  and  years  after,  in  the  essay  "  IMackery 
End  in  Hertfordshire,"  is  the  portrait  of  a  Beauty  with  yellow  hair, 
"so  like  my  Alice."  The  real  name  of  this  sweetheart  of  his  boy- 
hood was  Ann  Simmons.  She  afterward  married  one  William 
Bartrum,  a  London  pawnbroker;  and  thus  "the  children  of  Alice 
call  Bartrum  father." 

Queries  and  Suggestioxs 
A  Quakers'  Meeting. 
Note  in  this  essay: 

1.  The  effect  of  half  humorous  surprise  gained  in  the  first  para- 
graphs by  the  seeming  paradox  that  silence  and  solitude  are  inten- 
sified by  numbers. 

2.  The  striking  imagery,  noble  or  beautiful,  by  which  this 
paradox  is  illustrated  and  enforced.  Make  a  detailed  study  of  the 
imagery  in  some  one  paragraph. 

3.  The  eflect  of  the  archaic  style  in  which  the  whole  essay  is  cast. 
Point  out  the  archaic  peculiarities  of  diction  and  sentence. 

4.  The  movement  and  cadence  of  Lamb's  prose  in  its  best  pas- 
sages. 

A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig. 

1.  Why  does  Lamb  call  his  paper  a  "Dissertation"? 

2.  Note  the  ways  by  which  the  humorous  etTects  of  the  narrative 
part  of  the  paper  is  heightened. 

3.  Point  out  instances  of  "the  humorous  application  of  lofty 
metaphor  and  epithet"  mentioned  on  page  31Q. 

4.  Point  out  any  other  examples  of  that  form  of  humor  which 
consists  in  "the  sudden  ju.xtaposition  of  incongruous  ideas." 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        325 

5.  Note  the  effect  of  archaic  forms,  especially  in  the  last  half  of 
the  essay. 

6.  If  you  compare  this  essay  with  that  on  A  Quakers'  Meeting, 
can  you  see  any  points  of  similarity  between  them,  either  in  temper 
or  in  style?     And  what  striking  differences? 

Dream  Children. 

1.  Point  out  some  striking  differences  in  diction  and  structure 
between  the  style  of  this  essay  and  that  of  the  other  two  you  have 
read. 

2.  Why  would  the  style  of  the  other  two  be  quite  inappropriate 
for  this? 

3.  Mention  some  passages  in  this  essay  that  have  especially 
pleased  you. 

4.  What  parts  of  the  story  are  drawn  from  Lamb's  memory, 
and  what  parts  from  his  imagination?  Show  how  skillfully  the 
two  parts  are  united. 

5.  How  are  the  characters  of  the  two  children  suggested? 

6.  Show  from  some  passages  in  this  essay  that  humor  and  pathos 
may  naturally  blend,  the  one  passing  insensibly  into  the  other. 

7.  It  is  said  above  that  the  manner  of  this  essay  reminds  us  of 
some  of  the  Scripture  narratives;  can  you  mention  any  passages 
of  the  Old  Testament  which  suggest  such  resemblance? 

State  in  a  brief  essay  what  you  would  infer  from  all  three  of  these 
essays  as  to  the  temperament  of  Charles  Lamb. 

WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

Of  the  group  of  English  essayists  in  the  early  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  no  one  better  deserves  to  be  read  than  William 
Hazlitt;  yet  perhaps  no  one  is  read  less.     His  fame  has  been  over- 
shadowed by  that  of  Lamb  and  DeQuincey;  it  was  not  until  seventy- 
five  years  after  his  death,  that  we  had  a  complete  uniform  edition  of 
his  writings.     Yet  he  was   the  ablest  and  sanest  literary  critic  of 
his  time.     He  wrote  an  English  that  for  purity,  vigor,  and  distinc- 
tion is  quite  unsurpassed — if,  indeed,  it  be  equalled — by  any  Eng- 
lish prose  written  between  1800  and  1830.     And  the  personality 
everywhere  disclosed  in  his  writings,  though  his  friends  doubtless         ^ 
sometimes  found  it  difficult,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  ever  put      / 
into  a  book.     He  loved  to  write  about  himself.     Four-fifths  of  his    v 
best  work  is  really  autobiography.     It  was  not  until  he  was  well 
turned  of  thirty  that  he  gained  any  facility  with  his  pen.     By  that 
time  he  had  filled  his  mind  with  the  best  things  in  letters;  he  had 


326        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

formed  his  opinions  on  most  subjects,  political,  religious,  and  liter- 
ary; he  had  gained  the  few  friends  and  the  numerous  enemies  that 
were  to  last  him  his  life-time.  For  the  rest  of  his  days,  he  had 
only  to  draw  upon  this  accumulated  stock  of  memories  and  princi- 
ples. Doubtless  this  is  one  reason  why  his  work  fell  into  compara- 
tive neglect.  When  a  man  at  thirty  years  has  made  up  his  mind 
and  resolved  never  to  change  it,  we  shall  not  pay  much  attention 
to  his  verdicts  upon  whatever  happens  after  that  date.  We  see 
that  his  opinions,  however  interesting,  have  stiffened  into  preju- 
dices. It  may  be  admitted  that  Hazlitt  has  little  to  teach  us  on 
matters  political  or  historical;  but  even  his  prejudices  and  perver- 
sities are  entertaining.  And  there  remains  the  wide  personal  realm 
of  his  reading,  memory,  and  experience,  in  which  his  writing  is  often 
instructive  and  always  delightful. 

William  Hazlitt  was  born  in  1778.  His  father  was  a  dissent- 
ing minister,  a  studious  man  of  simple  tastes,  and  a  devoted  advo- 
cate of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  When  his  son  William  was  fi\'e 
years  of  age,  the  father  took  his  family  to  America,  hoping  to  find 
in  the  liberal  air  of  the  new  republic  a  more  congenial  field  of  labor. 
He  gave  some  lectures  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  and  for  a 
time  preached  to  a  congregation  in  Hingham,  near  Boston.  But 
his  theology  was  probably  too  liberal  for  the  strait  Puritan  ortho- 
doxy of  New  England;  he  failed  to  secure  a  call  from  any  parish, 
and  after  about  a  year  returned  to  England.  It  had  been  the  hope 
of  his  father  that  William  Hazlitt  would  himself  become  a  Unitarian 
minister;  but  as  the  boy  grew  to  manhood,  though  ho  shared  his 
father's  studious  habits  and  liberal  opinions,  he  showed  no  incli- 
nation to  enter  his  father's  profession. 

The  first  noteworthy  event  in  the  life  of  William  Hazlitt  was  the 
meeting  with  Coleridge  which  he  has  described  so  vividly  in  the 
essay  My  First  Acquaiutauce  ti'ith  Poets.  He  was  then  twenty 
years  old,  and  already  had  a  full  set  of  radical  opinions  at  least  in 
the  making.  His  love  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  inherited  from 
his  father,  warmed  by  the  ardor  of  youth,  was  passing  into  a  genuine 
enthusiasm.  He  had  sympathized  with  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment in  France,  and  now  looked  with  eager  hope  upon  the  early 
career  of  Napoleon  as  the  one  man  who  could  bring  order  out  of  the 
chaos  of  that  revolution,  the  great  protagonist  in  the  struggle  for  an 
ordered  liberty.  His  literary  taste  was  also  well  formed;  and  he 
had  felt  a  restless  dissatisfaction  at  the  failure  of  his  own  attempts 
to  j)ut  his  sentiments  into  writing.  Nor  had  he  yet  found  among 
English  writers  any  worthy  advocate  of  the  radical  cause.     The 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes         327 

great  voices,  he  had  to  own,  were  all  on  the  other  side.  He  had 
early  recognized  that  incomparably  the  greatest  contemporary 
master  of  English  prose  was  Edmund  Burke;  but  Burke  in  his 
latest  years  had  become,  he  thought,  the  determined  foe  of  public 
liberty.  It  can  be  readily  seen  why  the  meeting  with  Coleridge 
was  such  an  inspiration.  Here  at  last  was  a  man  of  philosophic 
breadth  of  mind,  a  genuine  lover  of  liberty,  and  a  consummate  mas- 
ter of  speech.  For  those  were  the  days  of  Coleridge  young,  full  of 
all  high  and  vague  enthusiasms,  and  eloquent  as  an  angel.  Hazlitt 
at  once  accepted  him  as  the  god  of  his  idolatry;  and  even  in  the  later 
years  when  Coleridge  had  belied  the  promise  of  his  youth  and  gone 
over  to  the  enemy,  Hazlitt  still  cherished  the  memory  of  that  early 
vision,  and  mourned  over  Coleridge  as  an  archangel  fallen. 

Hazlitt 's  acquaintance  with  Coleridge  doubtless  confirmed  his 
determination  to  become  a  writer,  but  it  was  long  before  there  was 
much  to  show  for  it.  He  said,  later  in  life,  that  he  had  thought 
for  eight  years  withouc  being  able  to  write  a  line.  His  first  effort, 
perhaps  encouraged  by  Coleridge,  was  in  the  field  of  philosophy. 
He  toiled  long  and  hard  over  a  treatise  On  the  Natural  Disinterested- 
ness of  the  Human  Mind,  and  succeeded  in  getting  it  published  in 
1805;  few  people  read  it  then,  and  nobody  reads  it  now.  Hopeless 
of  earning  a  living  by  his  pen,  he  decided  to  follow  the  profession  of 
an  elder  brother,  who  was  a  portrait  painter.  For  four  years  he 
labored  to  attain  excellence  in  that  art,  and  then,  convinced  of  his 
inability,  threw  down  his  brush.  These  were  not,  however,  alto- 
gether unprofitable  years,  as  we  naay  see  from  his  essay  On  the  Pleas- 
ures of  Painting.  They  doubtless  fostered  that  accurate  observa- 
tion and  quiet  reflection  so  evident  in  his  later  work.  His  home 
seems  to  have  been  with  his  father  in  Wem,  Shropshire;  but  he  was 
often  in  London,  and  by  1806  he  had  formed  the  acquaintance  of 
Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  and  of  Lamb 's  little  company  of  intimates. 
In  1808,  he  committed  the  indiscretion  of  marrying  a  Miss  Sarah 
Stoddard.  Miss  Stoddard  was  a  very  emancipated,  unconventional 
person,  whom  Heaven  had  probably  not  intended  to  be  the  wife  of 
any  man,  certainly  not  of  such  a  man  as  William  Hazlitt.  She  had, 
however,  a  tiny  estate  at  Winterslow,  near  Salisbury,  and  the  mar- 
ried couple  took  up  their  residence  there. 

What  Hazlitt  was  doing  in  those  years  is  not  very  clear.  He  seems 
not  to  have  been  writing  much.  He  had  published  nothing  since  1805 
except  two  or  three  political  or  philosophical  pamphlets  and  a  little 
treatise  on  English  grammar,  in  none  of  which  is  there  any  trace  of  the 
genius  he  was  so  soon  to  show.     But  in  1812  the  needs  of  his  increas- 


328         Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

ing  family  forced  him  to  come  up  to  London  in  search  of  some  regula, 
literary  employment.  He  accepted  a  position,  first  as  reporter  and 
•hen  as  theatrical  critic  on  the  London  CZ/row/V/c,  and  his  dramatic 
criticism  attracted  some  notice.  It  was  a  little  later  that  he  really 
found  himself.  In  1814  he  agreed  to  write  for  Leigh  Hunt 's  Examiner 
a  series  of  brief  essays  dealing  in  the  easy  manner  of  Addison  with  the 
humors  of  life  and  the  charms  of  books.  Hunt  himself,  just  then, 
was  spending  his  time  not  unpleasantly  in  jail,  for  having  printed 
the  year  before  a  very  telling  libel  on  the  Prince  Regent— whereby 
the  circulation  of  the  Examiner  was  notably  increased.  In  Haz- 
litt's  series  of  essays,  collected  two  years  later  under  the  title  of 
The  Round  Table,  his  real  genius  was  first  disclosed.  They  touch  a 
great  variety  of  subjects,  books,  manners,  social  customs  and  follies, 
with  acute  observation,  and  always  with  a  peculiar  charm  of  style. 
They  at  once  brought  Hazlitt  into  notice  as  a  critic  and  essayist. 
His  experience  with  the  Chronicle  had  taught  him  he  could  write; 
now  he  found  it  easy.  After  1814  he  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  a 
publisher.  In  that  year  he  received  his  first  invitation  to  con- 
tribute an  article  for  the  Westminster,  and  during  the  next  fifteen 
years  he  printed  no  fewer  than  nineteen  papers  in  that  important 
periodical.  His  writing  during  the  rest  of  his  life,  however,  was 
largely  in  the  form  of  briefer  essays,  contributed  to  various  papers 
and  magazines,  the  best  of  which  are  collected  in  the  volumes  en- 
titled, Tabic  Talk,  The  Plain  Speaker  and  Sketches  and  Essays. 
In  i8i8  he  gave  two  courses  of  public  literary  lectures,  one  on  The 
English  Comic  Writers  and  the  other  on  English  Poetry  from  Chaucer 
to  Burns;  and  the  following  year,  a  third  course  on  The  Dramatic 
Literature  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth. 

The  remaining  years  of  his  life  were  without  noteworthy  in- 
cident. They  were  not  altogether  happy  years.  With  the  down- 
fall of  Napoleon  and  the  rule  of  the  Holy  Alliance  his  hopes  for 
political  liberty  collapsed.  He  had  no  sympathy  for  either  polit- 
ical party  in  England;  Whigs  and  Tories,  he  felt,  under  different 
names  were  alike  foes  to  the  cause  of  civil  liberty.  His  old  friends, 
Coleridge,  Southey,  and  Wordsworth,  had  gone  the  way  of  cowards 
and  deserters.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  little  confidence  in 
vague  rhapsodists  like  Shelley,  or  loud  declaimers  like  Byron. 
He  was  dissatisfied  with  his  own  career.  The  lighter  essays  on 
which  his  fame  now  mostly  rests  he  never  regarded  as  of  much 
permanent  value;  while  the  only  two  of  his  books  he  himself  rated 
highly  were  just  the  ones  which  nobody  read  or  will  read — the 
Essay  on  the  Disinterestedness  of  the  Human  Mind  and  the  Life  of 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        329 

Napoleon — on  which  he  toiled  during  the  last  years  of  his  life. 
His  critics,  especially  Blackivood  and  the  Quarterly,  assailed  him 
with  personal  abuse  which  often  made  him  half  frenzied  with  terror 
and  anger.  His  own  temper  was  moody  and  difficult.  He  con- 
fesses that  he  had  quarreled  more  or  less  with  all  his  friends  and 
shouldn't  have  liked  them  so  well  if  he  had  not.  His  habits 
of  work  were  desultory.  He  had  left  off  reading  about  the  time 
he  began  writing;  and  periods  of  lonely  reflection,  alternated  with 
periods  of  feverish  industry.  He  spent  his  time  mostly  in  London, 
but  often  retired  to  the  Winterslow  Hut,  a  little  coaching  inn  near 
Salisbury,  where  much  of  his  latest  work  was  done.  Mrs.  Hazlitt, 
whose  temperament  was  neither  domestic  nor  romantic,  readily 
convinced  him  that  their  union  was  a  mistake,  and  accordingly 
man  and  wife  amicably  journeyed  to  Edinburgh,  in  1822,  to  pass  the 
period  of  residence  there  necessary  for  a  divorce  under  the  Scottish 
law.  Hazlitt  himself,  it  must  be  admitted,  was  not  an  exemplary 
husband.  Not  long  before  his  divorce,  he  conceived  a  violent  at- 
tachment for  a  young  girl,  daughter  of  a  London  tailor;  and  when 
she,  amazed  and  amused  by  his  extravagant  sentiments,  very 
wisely  married  another  admirer,  Hazlitt  sat  down  and  wrote  out  the 
whole  story  of  his  passion  in  a  little  book,  the  Liher  Amor  is,  which 
is  an  astonishing  piece  of  bad  taste.  Not  daunted  by  his  ex- 
periences, however,  he  afterwards  married  a  ISIrs.  Bridgewater, 
of  whom  nothing  more  is  known.  Their  union  was  brief.  There 
was  a  wedding  journey  to  the  continent;  but  Hazlitt  seems  to  have 
returned  alone,  and  his  wife  never  rejoined  him.  iThe  last  two  or 
three  years  of  his  life  seem  to  have  been  troubled  also  by  financial 
anxieties.  His  health,  never  robust  and  perhaps  impaired  by  his 
habit  of  drinking  enormous  amounts  of  strong  tea,  rapidly  declined, 
and  he  died  in  1830,  at  the  age  of  fifty-two. 

Hazlitt  evidently  was  not  formed  for  society,  hardly  even  for 
friendship.  The  combination  of  unpopular  and  dogmatic  opinions 
with  a  sensitive  and  irritable  temperament  is  not  likely  to  make  a 
man  a  genial  companion.  The  disappointment  of  his  early  political 
hopes  and  the  alienation  of  his  early  friends,  the  failure  of  his 
domestic  relations,  the  violent  abuse  from  his  critics,  all  combined 
to  embitter  a  nature  always  shy  and  self-conscious.  He  felt  him- 
self isolated,  and  at  odds  with  the  world.  He  was  suspicious  of 
everybody.  Even  JSIary  Lamb  once  wished  that  Hazlitt  wouldn't 
"hate  men  quite  so  universally."  Yet  the  few  who  knew  the  man 
well  could  see  that  this  sensitiveness  and  suspicion  were  only  the 
Tiorbid    shrinking  of    a  nature  really  hungry   for  affection.     At 


330        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

heart  he  loved  and  coveted  all  things  true  and  honest  and  of  good 
report.  The  best  characterization  of  him  is  given  by  the  friend 
who  knew  him  best,  Charles  Lamb:  "I  think  W.  H.  to  be  in  his 
natural  and  healthy  state,  one  of  the  wisest  and  finest  spirits  breath- 
ing; so  far  from  being  ashamed  of  that  intimacy  which  was  between 
us,  it  is  my  boast  that  I  was  able  for  so  many  years  to  have  possessed 
it  entire;  and  I  think  I  shall  go  to  my  grave  without  finding  or 
expecting  such  a  companion." 

But  the  qualities  that  made  Hazlitt  difficult  as  a  friend  perhaps 
made  him  all  the  more  delightful  as  a  writer.  Driven  in  upon 
himself,  he  lived  in  the  realm  of  memory  and  speculation,  and  found 
there  the  choicest  material  for  his  work.  In  his  controversial  writ- 
ing he  is  usually  vigorous  and  sometimes  angry — his  Letter  to 
William  Gifford  is  the  most  scathing  piece  of  invective  in  the  lan- 
guage; but  he  is  never  at  his  best  save  when  in  some  mood  of 
reminiscence  or  reflection.  His  taste  is  so  exacting  that  the  form 
of  his  work  is  sure  to  be  excellent.  However  famihar,  his  style  is 
never  merely  colloquial  or  vulgar;  it  has  always  a  certain  distinc- 
tion. He  said  with  truth  in  his  last  year,  "I  have  written  no  com- 
monplace and  not  a  line  that  Kcks  the  dust."  Of  all  the  virtues  of 
rhetorical  technique  he  was  easily  a  master.  Some  of  our  best 
modern  prose  writers— Macaulay,  Thackeray,  Bagehot,  Steven- 
son— have  admired  and  imitated  his  style.  "We  are  fine  fellows," 
said  Stevenson,  "but  we  can't  write  like  William  Hazlitt." 

Nor  is  it  chiefly  for  its  manner  that  the  work  of  Hazlitt  deserves 
admiration.  His  formal  philosophical  treatises,  his  Life  of  Na- 
poleon, and  most  of  his  political  writing  we  may  dismiss  to  probable 
oblivion;  but  there  remains  a  goodly  amount  that  must  last  at 
least  another  century  or  two.  As  a  critic  he  had  no  equal  in  his  own 
age,  and  has  had  very  few  since.  His  criticism  is  all  the  better 
that  it  is  not  analytic  and  formal;  it  is  the  record  of  his  own  im- 
pressions. He  tastes  the  best  things  in  a  book  with  real  gusto;  and 
he  has  the  art  to  make  you  share  his  enjoyment.  The  critric  can 
render  us  no  better  service  than  that.  But  it  is  in  his  personal  essays 
that  we  shall  find  his  most  characteristic  work.  While  they  are  all 
filled  with  the  flavor  of  his  own  personality,  they  touch  a 
remarkable  variety  of  subjects.  Some  of  them  are  in  the  tone  of 
grave  philosophic  meditation.  Hazlitt  inherited  from  his  father  a 
turn  for  speculation  upon  the  problems  of  philosophy,  and  that  tend- 
ency had  been  strengthened  by  long  and  solitary  thinking.  In  es- 
says like  those  On  the  Fcelint;,  of  Immortality  in  Youth,  On  Personal 
Identity,  Why  Distant  Objects  Please,  On  the  Past  and  Present,  we 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        331 

have  reflection  never  Irite  or  commonplace,  subtle  analysis  and  keen 
observation  enlivened  by  Hazlitt's  peculiar  sardonic  humor,  and 
every  now  and  then  trains  of  serious  thought  that  slowly  rise  to  the 
level  of  solemn,  imaginative,  impassioned  eloquence.  To  find 
anything  like  them  we  must  go  back  to  Jeremy  Taylor  or  Sir 
Thomas  Browne. 

But  best  of  all  are  the  intimate  autobiographical  papers  that 
record  his  memories  of  books  and  men,  his  hopes  and  disappoint- 
ments, his  likings  and  his  aversions.  These  essays  are  of  the 
nature  of  soliloquy.  He  is  writing  to  please  himself.  He  sets 
down  no  merely  trifling  incidents,  no  idle  personal  gossip.  It  is 
evident  that  the  man's  thought  and  imagination  dwell  by  preference 
with  noble  and  beautiful  things.  Even  his  whims  and  preversities 
are  usually  the  utterance  of  some  generous  moral  feeling  in  irrita- 
tion. Nearly  all  these  papers  are  tinged  with  a  certain  melancholy; 
but  the  melancholy  is  not  cynical  or  bitter.  The  harsher  passages 
of  his  life,  its  keener  disappointments,  are  softened  by  memory  into 
a  pensive  regret  that  gives  to  his  writing  a  sort  of  lyric  quality.  In 
their  constant  play  of  imagination,  in  their  sensitiveness  to  all  the 
intellectual  charm  of  life,  in  their  naive  expression  of  a  most  interest- 
ing personality,  in  the  perfection  of  a  style  easy  and  spontaneous 
and  yet  finished  and  melodious,  these  are  among  the  most  delightful 
essays  ever  written.  After  reading  them  we  can  understand  the 
dying  words  of  Hazlitt,  at  first  thought  so  strange,  "Well,  I  have 
had  a  happy  life."  The  man  whose  retrospect  over  life  found  ex- 
pression in  such  essays  as  these  could  not  have  been  altogether 
unhappy. 

My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets 

This,  perhaps  the  most  delighttul  essay  of  personal  reminiscence 
in  the  language,  was  written  in  1823,  twenty-five  years  after  the 
events  which  it  records. 

73,  3.  Dreaded  name  of  Demogorgon.  See  Paradise  Lost, 
Book  II,  lines  964-965.  One  of  the  "powers  and  spirits"  surround- 
ing Satan  in  the  nethermost  abyss. 

73,  4.  Coleridge :  Coleridge  was  then  twenty-six  years  of  age. 
He  had  left  the  university,  Cambridge,  in  the  last  days  of  1794, 
without  taking  a  degree.  He  had  formed,  and  then  speedily  aban- 
doned, a  visionary  scheme  of  emigrating  to  America  and  founding 
an  intellectual  colony  there.  In  1796  he  had  published  a  thin  vol- 
ume of  poems;  and  his  unusual  gifts  as  a  talker  and  a  preacher  had 


332        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

already   begun  to  attract    attention;    but  his  career    was  as  yet 
undecided. 

73,  2  1.  Fluttering  the  proud  Salopians.  This  is  a  good  example 
of  Hazlitt's  habit  of  free  and  adapted  quotation.  Shakespeare 
wrote: 

"That,  like  an  eagle  in  a  dove-cote,  I 
Flutter'd  your  Volscians  in  Corioli." 

Coriolanus,  V,  vi,  115. 

Salopians:  the  inhabitants  of  the  county  of  Shropshire,  the  old 
name  of  which  was  Salop. 

73,  25.  High-bom  Hoel's  harp.     See  Gray,  The  Bard,  line  28. 

74,  14.  With  Styx  nine  times  round  them.  See  Pope,  Ode  for 
Saint  Cecilia's  Day,  line  91. 

75,  15.  II  y  a  des  impressions.     From  Rousseau's  Confessions: 
"There  are  impressions   which  no  time  nor  circumstance  can 

efface.     Should  I  live  whole  ages,  the  sweet  days  of  my  youth  could 
never  return  to  me,  nor  ever  be  effaced  from  my  mcmorv." 

75,  22.  Rose  like  a  steam  of  rich  distilled  perfiunes:  Milton's 
Camus,  line  556. 

76,  8.  As  though  he  should  never  be  old :  "  Here  a  shepherd  boy, 
piping  as  though  he  should  never  be  old." — Sidney's  Arcadia, 
Ch.  2. 

76,  14.  Such  were  the  notes  our  once-loved  poet  sung :  opening 
line  of  Pope's  Epistle  to  Oxford.  Pope's  "once-loved  poet"  was 
Parnell. 

76,  27.  Jus  Divinum:  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
which  was  maintained  most  strenuously  all  over  Europe  in  the 
period  of  reaction  after  the  French  Revolution. 

76,  28.  Like  to  that  sanguine  flower,  etc.  See  Milton's  Lycidas, 
line  106. 

77,  II.  As  are  the  children  of  yon  azure  sheen.  See  Thomson's 
Castle  of  Indolence,  II,  stanza  S3- 

78,  ID.  Adam  Smith  (i 723-1790),  whose  Inquiry  into  the 
Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations  is  the  foundation  of  a 
new  school  of  political  economy. 

80,  6.  Mary  Wollstonecraft.  This  brilliant  woman,  the  author 
of  the  Vindication  of  the  Rights  of  Women  (1792),  was  the  wife  of 
William  Godwin.  She  died  at  the  birth  of  her  daughter,  Mary, 
who  was  afterward  the  wife  of  the  poet  Shelley. 

80,  6.  Mackintosh:  Sir  James  Mackintosh  (1765-1832),  an 
English    philosopher    and    statesman.     His    Vindicice   Gallica,    a 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        333 

defence  of  the  French  Revolution,  was  called  out  by  Burke's  famou? 
Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France. 

80,  25.  Tom  Wedgewood:  Josiah  and  Thomas  Wedgewood,  the 
famous  manufacturers  of  pottery,  were  early  friends  and  admirers 
of  Coleridge.  It  was  a  gift  from  them  that  enabled  Coleridge, 
in  1798-1799,  to  spend  a  year  in  Germany.  Thomas  Wedgewood 
died  in  1805. 

81,  14.  Holcroft:  Thomas  Holcroft  (i 745-1809),  an  English 
novelist  and  playwright.  He  was  a  violent  liberal,  and  in  1794 
had  been  tried  for  high  treason,  but  acquitted. 

82,  4.  Deva:  Latin  name  for  the  Dee,  a  river  in  north  Wales. 
82,  8.  The  Delectable  Mountains:  the  mountains  in  Bunyan's 

Pilgrim's  Progress,  from  which  one  may  see  the  Celestial  City. 

82,  19.  Cassandra:  the  prophetess,  a  daughter  of  Priam,  en- 
slaved by  Agamemnon,  and  killed  by  Clytemnestra.  Her  story  is 
told  in  the  Agamemnon  of  Aeschylus;  this  incident,  however,  is 
not  found  in  that  play.  Perhaps  Hazhtt  had  in  mind  the  play  of 
Cassandre  by  the  French  dramatist  La  Calpren^de. 

82,  29.  Sounding  on  his  way:  Chaucer,  Prologue  to  Canterbury 
Tales,  portrait  of  the  Merchant. 

83,  II.  Hiune:  David  Hume  (171 1-1776),  a  Scottish  philosopher 
and  historian. 

83,  12.  South:  Robert  South  (1634-1716),  an  eloquent  preacher 
of  the  English  church. 
83,  13.  Credat  JudaeusAppella:  from  Horace,  5a^f>ej  I,  v,  100 — 

"Credat  Judajus  Appella, 
Non  ego" 
"Let  the  Jew  Appella  believe  it;  I  will  not." 

83,  22.  Berkeley:  Bishop  George  Berkeley  (1685-1753),  greatest 
of  English  ideaUst  philosophers. 

83,  24.  Angry  with  Dr.  Johnson:  who  said  that  he  confuted 
Berkeley's  denial  of  the  e.xistence  of  material  substance  by  striking 
a  stone  with  his  foot.  The  incident  is  in  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson 
(Hill's  edition),  Vol.  I,  p.  471. 

83,  29.  Tom  Paine.  Thomas  Paine  (173  7- 1809)  was  born  in 
England,  but  expelled  thence  for  his  writings  in  behalf  of  the  Ameri- 
can revolutionists,  he  came  to  America  in  1776.  In  1787  he  re- 
turned to  England.  His  Rights  of  Man  (1791-1792)  was  the  ablest 
reply  to  Burke's  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France.  The 
reference  in  the  text  is  probably  to  his  later  work,  The  Age  of 
Reason,  a  Hefence  of  deism. 


334        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

8a,  33.  Butler:  Samuel  Butler  (1692-1752),  English  theologian, 
and  ablest  opponent  of  the  deistical  doctrines  prevalent  in  England 
in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

84,  s~-  Sidney:  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  the  pattern  English  gentleman 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  His  series  of  sonnets,  Astrophel  and 
Stella,  were  inspired  by  his  love  for  Lady  Penelope  Devereaux. 

85,  5.  Paley:  William  Paley  (i 734-1845),  leading  representative 
of  the  utihtarian  theory  of  ethics,  which  Coleridge  vigorously 
opposed. 

85,  14.  Kind  and  affable :  Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  VIII,  648-650. 

85,  2>i-  Southey's  Vision  of  Judgment:  The  poem  which  Southey, 
as  poet  laureate,  wrote  at  the  death  of  George  Third,  lauding  the 
deceased  king  in  most  extravagant  and  really  irreverent  terms. 
Upon  which  Byron,  who  detested  Southey,  wrote  a  poem  of  the 
same  title,  which  is  perhaps  the  most  scathing  and  sarcastic  parody 
in  the  language.  ]\Ir.  Murray,  his  London  publisher,  to  whom 
Byron  sent  his  poem,  declined  to  pubHsh  it,  fearing  a  prosecution 
for  libeL  "The  Bridge-street  Junta"  was  an  association  formed  for 
the  repression  of  seditious  pubhcations;  Hazhtt  here  speaks  of 
Murray  sarcastically  as  its  secretary. 

86,  32.  Tom  Jones:  the  principal  novel  of  Henry  Fielding; 
Hazlitt  almost  knew  it  by  heart. 

87,  I.  Paul  and  Virginia:  a  famous  novel  by  the  French  writer 
Bernardin  St.  Pierre,  issued  in  1788. 

87,  24.  Bridgewater:  about  eight  miles  east  of  Nether  Stowey. 

87,  26.  Camilla:  a  novel  (1796)  by  Madame  d'Arblay  (Fanny 
Burncy). 

88,  14.  Lyrical  Ballads.  This  famous  volume  made  up  of  poems 
by  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  was  published  in  September,  1798, 
a  few  weeks  after  this  visit  of  Hazlitt.  It  may  be  said  to  mark  the 
beginning  of  a  new  school  of  English  poetry. 

88,  23.  Hear  the  loud  stag  speak.  This  quotation  has  never 
been  located. 

89,  1 7.  In  spite  of  pride.     See  Pope,  Essay  on  Man,  I,  293 : 

"And,  spite  of  Pride,  in  erring  Reason's  spite, 
One  truth  is  clear.  Whatever  is,  is  Right." 

89,  24.  While  yet  the  trembling  year  is  unconfirmed :  Thomson's 
Seasons,  Spring,  18. 

89,  27.  Of  Providence,  foreknowledge:  IMilton,  Paradise  Lost, 
II,  559-560. 

90,  29.  Haydon:  Benjamin     Robert    Ilaydon    (1786-1846),     a 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        335 

distinguished  though  rather  too  grandiose  historical  painter.  The 
painting  referred  to  is  now  in  the  CathoUc  cathedral  of  Cincinnati. 
91,  6.  Monk  Lewis:  Matthew  Gregory  Lewis,  English  dramatist 
and  novelist;  called  "Monk"  from  the  title  of  one  of  his  romances, 
Ambrosia,  the  Monk. 

91,  24.  Face  was  as  a  book:  Macbeth,  I,  v,  63. 

92,  14.  Tom  Poole.  Thomas  Poole  (1765-1837)  was  a  wealthy 
young  radical,  engaged  in  the  tanning  business,  who  had  become 
warmly  attached  to  Coleridge,  and  offered  him  the  cottage  at 
Nether  Stowey,  in  which  Coleridge  was  living  at  the  time  of  Hazlitt's 
visit.  Mrs.  Sandford,  his  daughter,  has  written  a  delightful 
biography,  Thomas  Poole  and  His  Friends,  which  contains  much 
information  with  reference  to  Coleridge  and  the  Wordsworths  in 
these  years. 

92,  23.  Followed  in  the  chase:  Othello,  II,  iii,  370. 

92,  34.  Followed  Coleridge  into  Germany.  Coleridge  and 
Wordsworth  spent  a  year,  from  the  autumn  of  1798  to  the  autumn 
of  1799  in  Germany;  Coleridge  spending  most  of  the  time  in 
Gottingen,  Wordsworth  in  Goslar. 

93,  4.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  or  Mr.  Blackwood's  ...  at  the 
same  table  with  the  king.  The  reference  is  probably  to  a  dinner 
given  to  George  IV,  by  the  magistrates  of  Edinburgh  in  1822. 
Scott  and  Blackwood — the  founder  of  Blackwood's  Magazine — were 
both  very  pronounced  Tories. 

93,  II.  Gaspar  Poussin:  French  landscape  painter  (1613-1675). 
Domenichino :    properly  Domenico    Zampieri,  Spanish  painter 

(1581-1641). 

94,  5.  Giant's  Causeway :  on  the  north  coast  of  Ireland. 

94,  13.  Death  of  Abel,  by  Solomon  Gessner,  a  Swiss  poet.  The 
Tod  Abels  is,  however,  in  prose. 

94,  22.  Seasons,  by  James  Thomson,  the  poem  was  issued  in 
parts,  1726-1730. 

95»  19-  Junius:  pseudonym  of  the  writer  of  a  famous  series  of 
political  letters  appearing  in  the  London  .Advertiser  from  1768  to 
1772.  Their  authorship  has  never  been  certainly  determined; 
but  they  were  probably  written  by  Sir  Philip  Francis. 

95,  25.  Caleb  Williams:  a  famous  political  novel  (1794)  by 
William  Godwin. 

96,  34.  Mr.  Elliston :  Robert  WiUiam  Elliston,  a  favorite  actor 
in  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre. 

97,  17.  But  there  is  a  matter,  etc.  See  Wordsworth's  Hart 
Leap  Well,  lines  95-96. 


33^        Biographical  Sketclics  and  Notes 

On  Going  on  a  Journey 
This  very  characteristic  essay  first  appeared  in  the  New  Monthly 
Magazine  for  1822,  the  first  of  a  series  of  papers  under  the  heading 
Table  Talk. 

97,  23.  The  fields  his  study,  etc.  See  Bloomfield,  The  Farmer's 
Boy,  Spring,  31. 

98,  3.  .  .  .a  friend  in  my  retreat.  See  Cowper,  Relirement, 
742-743- 

98,  II.  May  plume  her  feathers,  etc.  From  IMilton's  Comus, 
378-380. 

98,  16.  A  Tilbury:  a  two-wheeled  carriage  without  top,  called 
after  a  London  coachmaker  of  the  early  nineteenth  century. 

98,  27.  Sunken  wrack  and  sumless  treasuries:  Shakespeare's 
Henry  V.,  I,  ii,  165. 

99,  2.  Leave,  oh,  leave  me  to  my  repose:  Gray's  The  Descent 
of  Odin,  which  is  a  paraphrase  of  the  Icelandic  lay  Vegtams  kvida. 

99,  5.  Very  stuff  of  the  conscience :  Shakespeare's  0//;f//o,  I,  ii,  2. 

99,  iS.  Out  upon  such  half -faced  fellowship:  Shakespeare's 
Henry  IV,  Part  I,  I,  iii,  208. 

99,  22.  Mr.  Cobbett:  WiUiam  Cobbett  (i 762-1835),  noted 
EngUsh  economist  and  radical. 

99,  27.  Sterne:  Laurence  Sterne  (1713-1768),  a  sentimental 
novelist  of  the  mid-eighteenth  centur\-,  with  whose  writings  Hazlitt 
was  very  familiar.  The  remark  in  the  text  is  from  his  Sentimental, 
Journey. 

loi,  2.  My  old  friend  C :  Coleridge.     See  the  preceding 

essay  for  an  account  of  Coleridge's  gift  of  talk. 

loi,  6.  He  talked  far  above  singing.  See  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  Philaslcr,  V.  v:  "I  did  hear  you  talk  far  above  singing." 

loi,  15.  Here  be  woods,  etc.  Fletcher's  Faithful  Shepherdess 
I,  iii,  27-43. 

102,  6.  L :  Charles  Lamb. 

102,  19.  Take  one's  ease  at  one's  inn:  Shakespeare's  Henry 
IV,  Fart  I.,  Ill,  iii,  93. 

102,  27.  The  cups  that  cheer,  but  not  inebriate :  Cowper's  Task, 
IV,  39. 

102,  31.  Sancho:  Sancho  Panza  the  squire  in  the  romance  of 
Don  Quixote  by  Cervantes.  The  incident  here  referred  to  may  be 
found  in  Part  II,  ch.  49. 

103,  I.  Shandean  contemplation:  The  reference  is  to  Sterne's 
Tristram  Shandy;  the  elder  Shandy,  "my  father,"  in  that  singular 
novel  was  much  given  to  quaint  and  sentimental  contemplation. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes         337 

103,  2.  Procul,  O  procul  este  profani:  Vergil's  Aeneid  VI,  258 — 
"  Afar,  stand  afar,  ye  profane"  the  regular  warning  to  the  uninitiated 
in  religious  ceremonies. 

I03i  23.  Unhoused  free  condition  :    Shakespeare's  O^Ae/Zo,  I,  ii,  26. 

103,  26.  Lord  of  one's  self,  unciunber'd  with  a  name  :  Dryden, 
Epistle  to  John  Driden,  78:  "Lord  of  yourself,  uncumber'd  with  a 
wife." 

104,  15.  St.  Neot's:  a  town  near  Peterborough. 

104,  16.  Gribelin's  engravings.  Simon  Gribelin  (1661-1733)  °^^- 
1707  engraved  a  series  of  seven  plates  of  the  famous  cartoons  of 
Raphael  which  are  preserved  in  Hampton  Court  palace. 

104,  19.  Westall:  Richard  Westall  (1765-1836),  an  English 
historical  painter,  specially  noted  for  his  designs  for  the  illustra- 
tion of  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

104,  25.  Paul  and  Virginia  .  .  .  at  Bridgewater.  See  the  essay 
On  My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets.  The  reading  of  Madame 
D'Arblay's  Camilla  and  Rousseau's  Nezv  Eloise  is  described  in  the 
same  essay. 

104,  32.  St.  Preux  describes  his  feelings.  The  passage  may  be 
found  in  La  Nouvelle  Hcloise,  Partie  IV,  Lettre  i-j. 

105,  7.  Green  upland  swells,  etc.  Coleridge,  Ode  to  ihe  Departitig 
Year,  VII,  4-6. 

105,  20.  The  beautiful  is  vanished,  etc.:  Coleridge,  translation 
of  The  Death  ofWallenstein,  V,  i. 

io5>  3°-  Where  is  he  now?  In  1822,  Coleridge  had  been  for 
six  years  living  with  Dr.  Oilman,  at  Highgate,  near  London,  striving 
to  break  the  fetters  of  his  bondage  to  the  opium  habit.  His  early 
political  enthusiasms  had  vanished;  his  days  of  poetical  inspiration 
were  over;  and  he  was  now  chiefly  interested  in  philosophical  and 
rehgious  speculations  which  seemed  to  Hazlitt  barren  of  any  valu- 
able result.  Twenty-five  years  before,  in  the  days  of  his  visit  to 
Nether  Stowey,  Hazlitt  had  looked  upon  Coleridge  with  almost 
idolatrous  admiration;  he  always  lamented  over  Coleridge's  aban- 
donment of  liberal  political  principles  as  a  kind  of  treason  to  all 
his  early  ideals.  And  what  was  worse,  all  the  world  seemed  to  have 
made  the  same  surrender — to  have  become  "old  and  incorrigible." 

106,  24.  Beyond  Hyde  Park,  says  Sir  Fopling  Flutter,  all  is  a 
desert.  Sir  Fopling  Flutter  is  the  hero  of  the  comedy  The  Man  of 
Mode  by  George  Etherege  (1635-1691).  The  remark  quoted  from 
the  play  is  not  made  by  Sir  Fopling  Flutter  but  by  Harriet  to 
Dorimant,  Act  V,  ii. 

107,  28.  Stonhenge:  a  celebrated  prehistoric  monument,  prob- 


338        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

ably  of  a  religious  character,  consisting  of  a  circle  of  stones  seventeen 
in  number.  It  is  in  Salisbury  Plain  about  eight  miles  from  the  city 
of  SaHsbury. 

107,  S3-  The  mind  is  its  own  place:  Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  I, 
254- 

108,  2.  I  once  took  a  party  to  Oxford.  Hazlitt  went  to  Oxford 
with  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,  in  the  summer  of  18 10;  it  is  probably 
this  visit  to  which  he  refers. 

108,  5.  With  glistering  spires  and  pinnacles  adom'd:  Milton, 
Paradise  Lost,  III,  550. 

108,  8.  The  Bodleian:  The  famous  Bodleian  library;  Blenheim: 
the  seat  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough. 

108,  30.  When  I  first  set  my  foot  on  the  laughing  shores  of 
France.  This  was  in  1802,  when  he  was  but  twenty-four  years 
old.     He  was  visiting  Paris  to  study  in  the  Louvre. 

109,  22.  Dr.  Johnson  remarked.  See  Boswell's  Life  (Hill's 
Edition)  III,  352. 

109,  31.  Out  of  my  country  and  myself  I  go.  This  quotation  I 
cannot  locate. 

On  Reading  Old  Books 

no,  II.  Tales  of  my  Landlord.  Several  of  Scott's  novels  were 
pubHshed  in  Series  under  this  Title.  The  first  Series,  1861,  included 
The  Black  Divarf  and  Old  Mortality;  the  second  Series,  18 18,  Rob 
Roy  and  The  Heart  of  Midlothian,  the  third  Series,  1819,  The  Bride 
of  Lammermoor  and  .4  Legend  of  Montrose. 

no,  13.  Lady  Morgan:  whose  maiden  name  was  Sydney  Owen- 
son,  was  the  author  of  a  number  of  Irish  stories,  in  the  early  nine- 
teenth century,  that  were  very  popular  in  their  day. 

no,  15.  Anastasius:  an  Eastern  romance  published  anony- 
mously in  18  ig.  It  was  thought  at  the  time  of  its  appearance  to 
be  the  work  of  Byron;  but  was  written  by  Thomas  Hope. 

no,  18.  Delphine:  a  novel  by  Madame  de  Stael,  pubHshed  in 
1802. 

no,  26.  Andrew  Millar :  prominent  bookseller  and  publisher  of 
the  middle  eighteenth  century.  He  published  the  novels  of  Field- 
ing and  Samuel  Johnson's  Dictionary. 

no,  28.  Thurloe's  State  Papers:  A  Collection  of  State  Papers, 
(7  vols.  1742)  by  John  Tluirloe. 

no,  29.  Sir  William  Temple's  Essays :  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing early  collections  o£  essays,  published  in  1680  and  1692,  Temple 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        339 

was  an  eminent  statesman  and  scholar  in  the  reign  of  William  and 
Mary,  1688-1702;  but  is  now  perhaps  most  often  remembered  as  the 
patron  of  Jonathan  Swift.  See  Macaulay's  interesting  essay, 
Sir  William  Temple. 

no,  30.  Godfrey  Kneller :  famous  portrait  painter  (1646-1723). 

111,  30.  Rifaccimentos :  reworking  or  revision  of  works  of 
literature. 

112,  21.  Fortunatus's  wishing -cap:  a  cap  which  had  the  power 
to  transport  Fortunatus  instantly  wherever  he  wished.  The 
legend  probably  originated  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century;  a 
version  of  it  was  printed  in  Augsburg  as  early  as  1509. 

112,  25.  Bruscambille.  See  Sterne's  Tristram  Shandy,  Book  III. 
ch.  35.  The  book  with  which  "my  father  Shandy,"  solaced  him- 
self was  probably  purely  an  invention  of  Sterne's;  but  Bruscambille 
was  the  surname  of  Deslauriers,  a  French  comic  actor  of  the  seven- 
teenth century. 

112,   26.  Peregrine  Pickle  (1751),  a  novel  by  Tobias  Smollett. 

112,  27.  Tom  Jones  (1749),  the  masterpiece  of  Henry  Fielding. 

113,  5.  The  puppets  dallying:  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  III,  2. 
113,  17.  Ignorance  was  bliss:  Gray,  On  a  Distant  Prospect  of 

Eton  College,  line  10. 

113,  32.  The  Ballant3me  Press.  James  Ballantyne  was  the  pub- 
lisher of  most  of  the  novels  and  poems  of  Walter  Scott.  Scott  was 
himself  a  silent  partner  in  the  concern,  and  on  the  failure  of  Ballan- 
tyne assumed  the  great  obligation  and  virtually  killed  himself 
by  his  heroic  efforts  to  pay  it. 

113,  34.  The  Minerva  press:  a  pubHshing  house  in  Leadenhall 
Street,  London,  which  in  last  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  pubUshed  many  sensational 
romances. 

114,  g.  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  "Romance  of  the  Forest"  (1791),  one 
of  a  number  of  bugaboo  romances  by  Ann  Radcliffe. 

114,  II.  Sweet  in  the  mouth  .  .  .  bitter  in  the  belly.  See 
Revelation,  X,  9. 

114,  13.  Gay  creatures:  Milton's  Comus,  I,  299. 

114,  28-31.  Major  Bath:  in  Fielding's  Amelia;  Commodore 
Trunnion:  in  Smollett's  Peregrine  Pickle;  Trim  and  my  Uncle 
Toby :  in  Sterne's  Tristram  Shandy;  Don  Quixote  and  Sancho  and 
Dapple:  in  the  Don  Quixote  of  Cervantes;  Gil  Bias  and  Dame 
Lorenza  Sephora,  of  Laura  and  the  fair  Lucretia:  in  the  Gil  Bias 
of  the  French  novelist  Le  Sage  (1668- 1747). 

115,  6.  O  Memory,  shield  me  from  the  world's  poor  strife. 


340        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

These  lines  appear  to  be  not  a  quotation,  but  an  original  couplet  of 
Hazlitt's. 

115,  13.  Chubb's  Tracts:  one  of  the  deistical  writers  of  the  early 
eighteenth  century.  His  Tracts  and  Posthumous  Works  were 
pubhshed,  in  six  volumes,  in  1754. 

115,  22.  Fate,  free-will,  fore -knowledge  absolute  .  .  .  found 
no  end:  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  II,  560. 

115,  28.  Would  I  had  never  seen.  See  Christopher  Marlowe 
(1564-1593):  Dr.  Faustiis,  scene  xix. 

115,  29.  Hartley,  Hume,  Berkeley:  David  Hartley  (1705-1757); 
David  Hume  (1788-1776);  George  Berkeley  (1685-1753):  eminent 
English  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

115,  30.  Locke's  Essay  on  the  Human  Understandmg  (i6qo), 
the  most  important  philosophical  work  of  the  last  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

115,  32.  Hobbes  (1588-1679),  an  English  philosopher,  whose 
most  important  work,  the  Leviathan  was  issued  in  1651. 

116,  5.  New  Eloise:  Rousseau's  famous  romance  La  Nouvelle 
Heloise,  pubhshed  in  1761.  The  Heloise  and  the  Confessions  of 
Rousseau  were  among  the  books  with  which  Hazlitt  was  most 
famiUar,  and  which  he  is  never  tired  of  quoting.  The  passages 
here  referred  to  are  in  Part  VI  of  the  "  Heloise.  "  The  Social  Contract 
of  Rousseau  was  published  in  1762;  the  Cotifessions.,  after  his  death 
in  1778.     His  romance  Emilc  (1762)  is  really  a  treatise  on  education. 

116,  20.  I  have  spoken  elsewhere :  in  an  essay  "  On  the  Character 
of  Rousseau,"  Round  Tabic  No.  XXIV. 

116,  29.  Sir  Fopling  Flutter.     See  note  on  line  24,  page  106. 

117,  8.  Leurre  de  dupe:  "decoy  for  a  dupe,"  a  phrase  from 
Rousseau's  Confessions  IV,  4. 

117,  II,  A  Load  to  sink  a  navy:   Shakespeare's  Henry   VIII, 

ni,  i,  2. 

117,  34.  Marcian  Colonna  is  a  dainty  book:  Marcian  Collonna, 
title  of  a  volume  of  poetry  by  Barry  Cornwall  (B.  W.  Procter). 
The  line  is  the  first  of  a  sonnet  by  Lamb. 

1x8,  14.  Words,  words,  words.  Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  II,  ii, 
194. 

118,  19.  The  great  preacher  in  the  Caledonian  chapel:  Edward 
Irving;  an  early  friend  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  an  unsuccessful 
suitor  for  the  hand  of  Jane  Welsh  who  afterwards  married  Carlyle. 
He  went  to  London  as  a  preacher  in  1722,  and  his  elotiuence  and 
his  peculiar  religious  pretensions  made  him  for  some  dozen  \p»rs  one 
of  the  most  noted  figures  in  Londoa 


Biographical   Sketches  and  Notes        341 

118,  23.  As  the  hart  that  panteth,  etc.     See  Psalm,  XLII,  i. 

118,  25.  Goethe's  Sorrows  of  Werter  and  to  Schiller's  Robbers. 
The  Werther  was  finished  in  1774  and  the  Robbers  in  1782.  "The 
Robbers  was  the  first  play  I  ever  read,  and  the  effect  it  produced 
upon  me  was  the  greatest."  Hazlitt,  "Lectures  on  the  Age  of 
Elizabeth,"  VIII. 

118,  27.  Giving  my  stock  of  more,  etc.:  Shakespeare's  As  You 
Like  It,  II,  i,  48. 

119,  2.  My  acquaintance  with  the  authors  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads. 
See  the  preceding  essay,  page  73. 

119,  8.  Valentine,  Tattle,  or  Miss  Prue:  characters  in  the  play 
of  Love  for  Love  by  William  Congreve  (1670-17  29). 

119,  13.  Know  my  cue:  Shakespeare's  Othello,  I,  ii,  84, 
119,  15.  Intus  et  in  cute:  Persius,  Satires,  III,  epilogue: 

"Ego  te  intus  et  in  cute  novi." 

"I  knew  you  intimately  and  in  the  skin." 

119,  21.  Sir  Himiphrey  Davy  (1778-1829),  an  eminent  English 
physicist. 

119,  28.  Spectator  .  .  .  Tatler:  by  Addison  and  Steele. 

119,  30.  Rambler  (i 750-1752),  edited  bj-  Johnson;  Adventurer 
(1752-1754),  by  John  Hawkesworth;  World  (t753-i756),  by 
Edward  Moore;  Connoisseur  (1754-1758),  by  George  Colman  and 
Bonnel  Thornton.  Hazlitt  has  a  valuable  lecture  on  these  periodical 
essayists  in  his  series  On  the  Comic  Writers. 

120,  5.  Clarissa  .  .  .  Clementina  .  .  .  Pamela:  the  heroines  of 
Richardson's  three  novels,  Pamela,  Clarissa  Ilarlowc,  and  Sir 
Charles  Grandison. 

120,  6.  With  every  trick  and  line:  Shakespeare's  All's  Well 
That  Ends  Well,  I,  i,  107. 

120,  9.  Mackenzie's  "Julia  Roubigne."  Henry  Mackenzie's 
three  novels — the  two  mentioned  here  and  Tlie  Man  of  the  World 
— were  published  between  1770  and  1780;  they  were  very  senti- 
mental and  had,  for  a  time,  many  admirers. 

120,  14.  Miss :  .probably  Miss  Sarah  Walker,  for  whom 

Hazlitt  had  for  a  httle  time  a  most  surprising  infatuation,  the 
record  of  which  he  put  into  a  volume,  entitled  "Liber  Amoris." 

120,  15.  That  Ugament,  fine  as  it  was:  a  phrase  from  the  story 
of  Le  Fevre  in  Sterne's  Tristram  Shandy,  Book  VI,  ch.  x. 

120,  19.  Boccaccio:  Giovanni  Boccaccio  (1313-1375),  a  cele- 
brated Italian  poet  and  novelist.  The  story  of  the  Hawk  is  from 
his  principal  work,  the  Decameron,  a  collection  of  a  hundred  tales. 


342        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

A  graceful  modern  version  of  that  story  may  be  read  in  "The 
Student's  Tale"  in  Longfellow's  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Iiui. 

I20,  23.  I  remember,  as  long  ago  as  the  year  1798.  This  was 
the  year  of  his  visit  to  Coleridge  described  in  "My  First  Acquain- 
tance with  Poets." 

120,  24.  Farquhar  .  .  .  "Recruiting  Officer":  George  Far- 
quhar  (1678- 1707),  comic  dramatist  of  the  Restoration  period. 

120,  26.  At  one  proud  swoop:  "At  one  fell  swoop."  See 
Shakespeare's  Macbeth,  IV,  iii,  289. 

120,  31.  With  all  its  giddy  raptxires:  Wordsworth,  "Lines 
above  Tintern  Abbey." 

120,  2>?>-  Embalmed  with  odors:  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  II,  843. 

121,  9. — His  form  had  not  yet  lost:  Ibid,  I,  591. 
121,  13.  Falls  flat  upon  the  grunsel  edge:  Ibid.,  I,  640. 

121,  25.  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord.  This  was  Edmund  Burke's 
triumphant  and  crushing  reply  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford  who  had 
charged  Burke  with  subserviency  to  the  government  because  he 
had  accepted  a  pension.  The  "Letter"  shows  Burke's  powers  at 
their  height. 

121,  30.  Junius.     See  note  on  line  19,  page  95. 

122,  4.  Like  an  eagle  in  a  dove  cote.  See  note  on  line  21, 
page  73. 

122,  16.  Essay  on  Marriage.  Wordsworth  is  not  known  to  have 
written  any  such  essay.     Hazlitt's  memorj'  was  probably  at  fault. 

122,  29.  I  regarded  the  wonders  of  his  pen.  Compare  the 
statement  in  the  essay  "On  My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets," 
page  73. 

123,  17.  Lord  Clarendon's  (1608-1674):  History  of  the  Rebellion 
and  Civil  Wars  in  England. 

123,  24.  Froissart's  Chronicles:  Jean  Froissart  (1338-1410), 
French  historian  and  chronicler.  Holinshed  and  Stowe,  and 
Fuller's  "Worthies":  Ralph  Holinshed,  Chronicles  of  England, 
Scotland  and  Ireland,  whence  Shakespeare  drew  much  of  the  material 
for  his  English  historical  plays;  John  Stowe,  Siimmarie  of  English 
Chronicles  (1561),  A  Survey  of  London  (1598);  Thomas  Fuller, 
The  History  of  the  Worthies  of  England  (1662). 

123,  26.  Beaimiont  and  Fletcher:  Francis  Beaumont  (1586- 
1616)  and  John  Fletcher  (1579-1625)  after  Shakespeare  and  Ben 
Jonson  the  most  prominent  of  the  dramatists  of  the  early  seven- 
teenth century.     In  many  of  their  plays  they  worked  together. 

123,  30.  Thucydides:  the  greatest  of  Greek  historians;  he  wrote 
between  450  and  401  B.  C. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes         343 

123,  31.  Guicciardini :  Francesco  Guicciardini,  an  Italian 
historian  (1483-1540). 

123,  32.  Loves  of  Persiles  and  Sigismunda:  the  last  work  of 
Cervantes  published  16 17;  Galatea  was  his  first  work  (1585). 

123,  34.  Another  Yarrow:  "Yarrow  Unvisited,"  the  first  of  the 
three  poems  by  Wordsworth  on  the  Scottish  river  Yarrow. 

Queries  and  Suggestions 

My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets. 

1.  How  old  was  Hazlitt  when  he  first  met  Coleridge? 

2.  What  was  it,  do  you  think,  in  the  sermon  of  Coleridge  that  so 
delighted  Hazlitt? 

3.  What  traits  of  Hazlitt's  genius  can  you  see  in  his  father  as 
described  in  the  remarkable  paragraph,  page,  78? 

4.  Coleridge  as  a  talker. 

5.  Some  other  characteristics  of  Coleridge  in  his  early  years, 
as  seen  in  this  paper. 

6.  What  do  you  gather  as  to  the  political  and  social  opinions  of 
Coleridge  in  this  period  of  his  life? 

7.  What  book  was  Hazlitt  himself  vainly  trying  to  write  at  this 
time? 

8.  When  did  Hazlitt  visit  Coleridge  and  how  long  was  he  on  the 
journey?  Does  he  mention  this  journey  in  either  of  the  other 
essays  in  this  volume? 

9.  Nether  Stowey  and  Alfoxden  as  you  imagine  them. 

10.  How  did  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  happen  to  be  living 
so  near  each  other  at  this  time?  What  important  poems  written 
by  each  during  this  period  in  their  lives? 

11.  Prosaic  appearance  and  manner  of  Wordsworth. 

12.  Describing  their  walk  to  Linton,  Coleridge  says  that  if  he 
had  to  choose  of  the  three,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth  and  John 
Chester,  for  a  traveling  companion,  "it  would  be  John  Chester." 
Why?     Illustrate  his  preference  by  reference  to  a  later  essay. 

13.  What  do  you  gather  from  these  papers  as  to  Hazlitt's 
temperament  in  youth,  and  his  early  social  and  political  opinions? 

14.  Illustrate  from  this  charming  paper  Hazlitt's  imagination, 
his  gift  of  personal  portraiture,  the  structure  and  cadence  of  his 
sentences. 

On  Going  a  Journey. 

I.  What  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  Hazlitt  likes  to  go  by 
himself? 


344        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

2.  Later  in  the  essay  he  admits  that  in  some  cases  he  has  no 
objections  to  going  "in  company  with  a  friend  or  a  party";  when? 
and  why? 

3.  What  would  seem  to  be  generally  the  subject  and  temper  of 
his  reflections  when  he  is  alone? 

4.  Do  you  think  he  shows  a  careful  or  accurate  observation  of 
nature  when  he  is  on  a  journey?     Has  he  the  eye  of  a  naturalist? 

5.  What  particular  journey  does  he  refer  to  as  taken  in  1798? 

6.  How  are  Coleridge  and  Lamb  compared  in  this  paper? 

7.  Can  you  see  any  indications  in  this  essay  that  HazHtt,  though 
sometimes  a  very  delightful  companion,  might  often  be  a  difficult 
one,  and  even  a  difficult  friend? 

8.  At  the  close  of  the  paragraph  on  page  107,  Hazlitt  says,  "To 
return  to  the  question  I  have  quitted  above."  What  is  that 
"quescion,"  and  where  did  he  fjuit  it?  Do  you  find  here  a  sugges- 
tion as  to  a  criticism  upon  Hazhtt's  style? 

On  Reading  Old  Books. 

1.  Hazlitt  says  at  the  beginning  of  this  essay  that  there  are 
twenty  or  thirty  books  he  has  read  over  and  over  again;  make  out 
a  list  of  ten  books  that  you  infer  from  the  three  essays  read  were 
most  familiar  to  him. 

2.  What  are  his  reasons  for  preferring  the  books  he  has  read 
before? 

3.  Why  is  he  inclined  to  regret  his  early  liking  for  philosophical 
literature? 

4.  He  read  few  poets  in  his  youth  because,  as  he  avers,  he  is 
"deficient  in  the  faculty  of  imagination";  do  you  think  he  was? 

5.  Comment  upon  Hazlitt's  curious  statement  of  the  conditions 
of  success,  in  the  paragraph  on  page  117.  Do  you  think  the  state- 
ment just?  Do  you  know  any  facts  in  Hazlitt's  life  that  may 
account  for  it?     And  how  does  it  illustrate  his  temperament? 

6.  Why  does  he  think  himself  a  better  judge  of  fiction  than  of 
poetry? 

7.  What  qualities  of  Burke's  writing — especially  in  the  Re- 
flections on  the  Revolution  in  France — did  he  greatly  admire?  But 
how  did  he  regard  the  opinions  of  that  book? 

Set  down  in  a  brief  essay  your  notion  of  the  man  William  Hazlitt 
— his  temperament,  habits,  moods,  opinions,  prejudices — as  you 
have  formed  it  from  the  essays  in  this  volume. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        345 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY 

Thomas  De  Quincey  was  born  in  Manchester,  August  15th,  1785, 
the  son  of  a  well-to-do  West  Indian  merchant.  The  father  died 
when  the  son  Thomas  was  only  five  years  of  age,  and  the  education 
of  the  boy  was  largely  directed  by  his  mother.  In  his  boyhood, 
if  we  may  accept  his  own  account,  he  showed  unusual  precocity; 
he  avers  that  at  thirteen  he  was  able  to  read  Greek  fluently,  and 
frequently  translated  the  newspaper  into  that  tongue.  At  a  very 
early  age,  also,  he  knew  those  moods  of  reverie  and  dream  so 
characteristic  of  all  his  later  years.  All  the  children  of  the  De 
Quincey  family — there  were  eight — seem  to  have  had  a  morbid 
intensity  of  intellect  and  imagination,  combined  with  a  certain 
willful  irresponsibility.  Two  sisters  died  in  childhood,  apparently 
of  some  affection  of  the  brain.  An  elder  brother,  a  singularly 
brilliant  lad,  lived  for  years  in  a  realm  of  his  own  imagining,  and 
died  when  just  entering  manhood.  A  younger  brother,  "Pink," 
ran  away  from  home  to  sea,  wandered  over  the  globe,  and  found 
as  strange  adventures  in  the  world  of  reality  as  his  brothers  found 
in  the  world  of  dreams. 

Thomas  De  Quincey  when  he  was  sixteen  was  ready  for  Oxford; 
but  his  guardians  unwisely  insisted  on  putting  him  into  the  Man- 
chester Grammar  School.  The  delicate,  dreamy  lad,  after  spending 
some  months  with  uncongenial  teachers  and  nagging  schoolfellows, 
ran  away  to  Wales,  and  refused  to  go  back  either  to  home  or  school. 
His  mother,  helpless,  gave  him  a  guinea  a  week  and  let  him  wander 
where  he  would.  At  the  approach  of  winter  he  went  up  to  London. 
The  adventures  of  that  winter  of  1802  and  1803  in  London,  his 
starving  vagabondage  in  the  great  city,  his  strange  friendship  with 
Anne  of  Oxford  Street,  all  the  world  has  read  in  The  Confessions  of 
an  English  Opium  Eater,  written  twenty  years  later.  It  is  possible 
that  some  of  the  incidents  of  that  story  may  have  been  colored  in 
De  Quincey 's  memory  by  the  mist  of  opium  through  which  he  saw 
them;  but  without  question  he  passed  through  experiences  of  suffer- 
ing and  sympathy  such  as  few  young  fellows  have  ever  known.  He 
was  discovered  at  last  and  sent  up  to  Oxford,  where  he  ought  to 
have  been  a  year  before.  He  was  nominally  in  Oxford  from  1803  to 
1808;  though  he  seems  not  to  have  kept  terms  regularly  after  1807. 
He  read  voraciously  during  all  that  time,  especially  in  philosophy 
and  literature;  but  his  reading  was  probably  fitful  and  he  left  the 
university  without  taking  a  degree. 

Two  things  of  importance  mark   this  university  period.     The 


346        Biographical  Sketclies  and  Notes 

first  was  the  formation  of  the  opium  habit.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think 
that  the  peculiar  quality  of  much  of  De  Quincey's  work  is  due 
primarily  to  opium.  He  was  a  dreamer  from  boyhood.  His 
imagination  always  liked  to  wander  in  dim  and  mysterious  regions. 
But  this  native  tendency  was  doubtless  strengthened  after  about 
1807  by  his  addiction  to  opium.  It  ought  to  be  remembered  that 
he  first  took  the  drug  to  relieve  the  almost  intolerable  pains  of  a 
malady  brought  on  by  the  privations  of  his  London  winter;  and, 
though  he  never  escaped  from  the  bondage  thus  invited,  he  strug- 
gled against  it  all  his  days,  and  was  seldom  absolutely  in  its  power. 
But  of  more  importance  than  this  first  acquaintance  with  the  drug 
of  doom,  was  his  first  meeting  with  Coleridge  and  the  Wordsworths. 
He  had  been  one  of  the  few  readers  who  recognized  the  advent  of  a 
new  poetry  in  the  Lyrical  Ballads  almost  ten  years  before;  and  it 
was  in  1807  that  he  first  met  both  the  new  poets.  The  papers  in- 
cluded in  this  volume,  in  which  he  tells  the  story  of  this  meeting  are 
among  the  most  interesting  passages  of  his  autobiography.  That 
first  visit  to  Wordsworth,  in  particular,  he  always  accounted  a 
turning  point  in  his  career.  He  declared  that  the  intimate  and 
friendly  intercourse  with  the  man  whom  he  had  up  to  that  time 
worshipped  only  at  a  distance  freed  him  from  morbid  shyness  and 
self  distrust,  and  produced  a  positive  "physical  change  in  my  ner- 
vous system."  In  1808,  when  Wordsworth  left  his  little  Dove 
Cottage  in  Grasmere,  De  Quincey,  just  out  of  the  university, 
rented  it  and  called  it  his  home  for  more  than  twenty  years.  The 
little  circle  of  his  friends  were  close  about  him.  Wordsworth  was 
hard  by  in  Grasmere;  Wilson,  whom  he  had  known  in  Oxford,  was 
at  EUesmere  a  few  miles  south;  Southey,  with  the  Coleridge  family, 
was  at  Keswick,  thirteen  miles  to  the  north.  In  1816,  he  married 
the  daughter  of  a  farmer  in  the  neighborhood,  and  indentified  him- 
self— so  far  as  such  a  recluse  could  do — with  the  life  of  the  Lake 
District. 

What  De  Quincey  was  doing  in  the  dozen  years  from  1808  to  1820, 
it  is  hard  to  say.  "Reading  German  metaphysics  and  taking 
opium,"  he  himself  avers,  in  a  familiar  passage.  Reading,  doubt- 
less, for  he  was  always  an  enormous  reader,  and  he  certainly  must 
have  turned  over  a  good  many  pages  of  German  philosophy;  yet  he 
could  hardly  have  been  called  a  thorough  student  of  philosojihy. 
His  reading,  though  profound,  was  always  desultory,  vagarious;  he 
pursued  no  consistent  lines  of  study.  He  had  adopted  no  profes- 
sion; he  seemed  to  have  no  vocation.  Inheriting  a  moderate  com- 
petence, he  gave  himself  up  to  the  life  of  reading  and  reverie.     Up 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        347 

to  1820,  though  he  had  doubtless  spoiled  a  good  deal  of  paper  by 
comments  and  excerpts,  he  had  not  published  a  line.  But  the  growth 
of  his  family'  forced  him  to  seek  some  means  of  increasing  his  slender 
annual  income.  He  failed,  as  might  have  been  expected,  in  an 
attempt  to  edit  a  local  newspaper;  but  in  the  summer  of  1821  he 
went  up  to  London,  and  in  September  and  October  of  that  year 
published  in  the  "London  Magazine,"  The  Confession  of  an  English 
Opium  Eater.  The  one  great  success  of  his  life  had  been  made 
suddenly.     A  new  writer  had  appeared. 

Henceforth  De  Quincey  was  a  contributor  to  magazines.  He 
remained  in  London  most  of  the  time  until  1825,  furnishing  a  num- 
ber of  papers  to  the  "London  Magazine"  and  to  "Knight's  Quar- 
terly Magazine,"  and  then  returned  to  Grasmere.  In  1826,  his 
old  friend  John  Wilson,  who  since  1817  had  been  editor  of  "Black- 
wood's Magazine,"  invited  him  to  lend  his  pen  to  that  periodical; 
most  of  his  work  for  the  rest  of  his  life  was  written  either  for  "  Black- 
wood" or  for  another  Edinburgh  monthly,  "Tait's  Magazine." 
In  1830  he  removed  with  his  family  to  Edinburgh,  to  be  near  his 
publishers;  the  rest  of  his  life  was  passed  in  that  city  or  in  the 
suburban  village  of  Lasswade. 

His  thirty  years  of  Edinburgh  life  were  without  noteworthy 
external  incident.  He  never  had  any  mastery  of  practical  affairs; 
but  after  the  death  of  his  wife  in  1837,  he  was  affectionately  cared 
for  by  his  daughters.  He  was  a  fragile  little  man,  only  about  five 
feet  in  height,  with  the  head  of  an  ancient  sage  set  upon  the  body  of 
a  boy.  His  withered  and  wrinkled  face,  his  awkward  stoop,  his 
timid  and  inefficient  movements,  combined  to  make  him  seem  a 
quarter  century  older  than  he  really  was.  IMorbidly  shy  and  sen- 
sitive, absent-minded,  he  dreaded  publicity,  and  even  the  ordinary 
conventions  of  society  were  irksome  to  him.  During  all  the  years 
when  he  was  one  of  the  lions  of  Edinburgh  it  was  difficult  to  get 
sight  of  him.  But  when,  with  a  few  congenial  friends  or  sometimes 
in  a  small  company,  his  tongue  was  loosened,  he  would  pour  forth 
an  amazing  stream  of  talk,  varied,  brilliant,  eloquent.  "What 
wouldn't  one  give,"  said  Mrs.  Carlyle  when  she  had  met  him  one 
evening,  "  to  have  that  little  man  in  a  box,  and  take  him  out  now 
and  then  to  talk."  But  by  choice  he  lived  a  recluse  with  his  books 
and  papers,  working  all  day  and  taking  long  solitary  walks  by  night. 
It  is  a  part  of  the  De  Quincey  tradition  that  he  would  occupy  one 
room  until  he  was  pushed  out  of  it  by  the  ever  accumulating  mounds 
of  manuscript  which  he  could  not  arrange  and  would  not  destroy. 
He  published  a  multitude  of  articles;  but  he  must  have  written  five 


348        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

times  as  many  as  he  published.  He  never  freed  himself  from  the 
opium  habit;  but  after  a  last  period  of  struggle  in  1843-44,  he  seems 
to  have  fixed  upon  the  least  daily  allowance,  and  rarely  exceeded  it. 
It  ma}^  be  doubted  whether  this  bondage  lowered  his  activity  or 
shortened  his  life.  He  himself  thought  that  laudanum  had  saved 
him  from  a  tendency  to  pulmonarj^  disease  inherited  from  his  father. 
The  last  ten  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in  a  lonely  eminence;  for 
he  outlived  all  his  early  friends,  Coleridge,  Lamb,  Wordsworth, 
Wilson,  Hazlitt,  and  others  half  a  generation  younger.  He  died 
in  1859,  in  his  seventy-fifth  year. 

To  estimate  the  value  and  rank  of  De  Quincey's  work  is  some- 
what difficult.  All  his  writing  is  miscellaneous  and  fragmentary. 
When  he  writes  upon  science,  history,  economics,  or  any  practical 
J  subject  which  demands  eyes  that  open  outwards,  what  he  says  may 
be  curious  or  entertaining — indeed,  it  almost  always  is — but  it  is 
not  sure  to  be  true.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  he  made  any  substan- 
tial contributions  to  the  literature  of  philosophy  or  criticism.  His 
writing,  for  the  most  part,  is  simply  his  talk  put  into  print,  the  talk 
of  a  secluded,  studious  man,  wide  ranging,  sometimes  profound  and 
sometimes  garrulous,  but  always  talk.  The  truth  is,  De  Quincey 
never  seemed  able  to  hold  his  mind  steadily  to  one  right  line  of 
thought  or  one  direct  path  of  narrative.  As  a  result,  his  more 
pretentious  work  never  shows  the  virtues  of  proportion  and  com- 
pleteness.    He  could  not  resist  the  fatal  lure  of  digression. 

This  habit  of  mind  accounts  for  the  most  marked  peculiarity  of 
his  style.  He  says,  in  a  very  suggestive  passage  (page  160  of  this 
volume)  that  in  his  youth  he  labored  under  an  embarrassment 
because  he  "could  not  unravel,  could  not  even  make  perfectly 
conscious  to  myself,  the  secondary  thoughts  into  which  a  leading 
thought  often  radiates;  or  at  least  I  could  not  do  this  with  any- 
thing like  the  rapidity  refjuisite  for  conversation."  This  ability, 
which  he  always  coveted,  he  attained  in  later  life  to  an  astonishing 
degree.  No  other  English  prose  writer  can  so  chase  a  thought  into 
all  its  ramifications  without  ever  quite  losing  his  way.  He  prided 
himself  upon  this  ability.  Of  the  short  and  simple  sentence,  he  was 
used  to  speak  with  something  like  contempt.  The  fault  of  Lamb 's 
writing,  he  said,  is  that  it  is  not  "sequacious."  His  own  certainly 
is.  His  long  sentences  wind  their  way  through  parentheses  and 
digressions,  and  yet  seldom  wander  altogether  out  of  control  of 
their  main  affirmation.  He  was  past  master  of  all  forms  of  what 
the  rhetoricians  call  "explicit  reference." 

Now  this  peculiarity  of  De  Quincey's  mental  action  certainly 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        349 

limits  considerably  the  value  of  his  work.  No  philosophic  subject 
can  be  treated  clearly  or  adequately  unless  it  can  be  isolated  in  some 
degree  from  its  connections.  Life  is  too  short  for  the  discussion  of 
any  truth  if  we  must  stop  to  trace  its  roots  and  branches  in  all  other 
truth.  Similarly  in  his  biographical  and  historical  papers,  De 
Quincey  is  frequently  allured  into  unpardonable  divagation. 
Everything  reminds  him  of  something  else.  He  gives  you  mani- 
fold reasons  why  something  did  not  happen,  or  manifold  reasons 
that  could  not  account  for  something  that  did  happen.  He  fills 
up  his  pages  with  curious  and  irrelevant  fact,  sometimes  with  mere 
gossip  and  what  Mr.  Saintsbury  calls  "rigmarole,"  till  he  is  obliged 
to  stop  without  having  told  his  story  after  all.  It  is  true  that 
these  papers  are  well  worth  the  reading — if  you  have  the  time. 
De  Quincey  is  always  very  full  of  matter.  Every  page  will  dis- 
close some  subtlety  of  thought  or  curious  felicity  of  phrase.  His 
vocabulary  is  a  marvel  of  richness  and  precision.  Yet  his  thinking 
too  seldom  has  any  clear  direction  or  definite  conclusion.  He  ram- 
bles most  suggestively,  but  he  doesn't  arrive. 

But  there  are  two  classes  of  De  Quincey 's  writing  in  which  this 
vagabond  intellectual  habit  proves  no  disadvantage,  nay  sometimes 
gives  an  added  charm;  and  it  is  precisely  in  these  two  varieties  that 
his  most  lasting  work  is  to  be  found.  In  his  rambling  papers  of 
personal  reminiscence,  gossip  is  just  what  we  want;  and  in  the  rec- 
ords of  his  dreaming  imagination,  tinted  more  or  less  by  the  opium, 
any  definite  and  ordered  method  might  lessen  the  sense  of  mystery 
and  awe  which  these  papers  leave  with  us.  The  papers  of  personal 
narrative  are  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  all.  It  is  to  De 
Quincey  that  we  are  indebted  for  the  history  of  the  Lake  District. 
Our  pictures  of  the  Coleridges,  the  Wordsworths,  and  the  Southeys 
would  lose  half  their  vivid  reality  were  it  not  for  the  gossiping 
recollections  of  this  sharp-eyed  little  critic  who  lets  us  see  them 
without  their  singing  robes,  in  their  habit  as  they  lived.  While  as 
to  the  Confessiotis  and  their  sequel,  the  Suspiria  de  Profundis,  they 
are  our  best  specimens  of  the  literature  of  waking  dream.  De 
Quincey  himself  claimed  that  parts  of  the  Suspiria,  such  as  the 
"dream  fugues"  following  the  Affliction  of  Childhood  and  the 
English  Mail  Coach,  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow  were  a  new  literary 
form,  a  kind  of  impassioned  prose  or  prose-poetry,  without  prece- 
dent in  our  literature.  Such  attempts  must  always  be  hazard- 
ous, liable  to  result  in  a  bastard  form,  neither  poetry  nor  prose, 
and  without  the  excellences  of  either.  I  do  not  think  that  all  of  the 
"dream-phantasies"  in  the  Suspiria  can  escape  this  charge.     They 


350        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

are  magniloquent  rather  than  eloquent;  their  imagination  is  too 
evidently  labored — De  Quincey  is  "  making  up "  his  dream.  But  in 
the  best  portion  of  the  Suspiria,  the  vision  of  the  Ladies  of  Sorrow — 
included  in  this  volume — he  has  succeeded  in  embodying  a  most 
august  conception  in  a  prose  genuinely  solemn  and  stately.  These 
majestic  figures  are  veritable  additions  to  our  mythology;  shadowy 
forms  that  haunt  forever  the  realm  of  a  sorrowing  imagination. 

Meeting  with  Coleridge 

De  Quincey's  account  of  his  first  visit  to  Coleridge  and  to  Words- 
worth should  be  compared  with  HazHtt's  story  of  his  "First  Ac- 
quaintance" with  the  same  poets. 

125,  6.  First  edition  .  .  .  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads :  published  in 
1798. 

125,  20.  Professor  Wilson:  John  Wilson,  Professor  of  Moral 
Philosophy  in  Edinburgh  University,  but  better  known  by  his 
pseudonj'm  of  "Christopher  Xorth"  as  editor  of  Blackwood's 
Magazine. 

126,  15.  Second  and  enlarged  edition :  published  in  1800. 

126,  23.  Mr.  Southey's  Joan  of  Arc.  Southey's  first  long  poem, 
written  when  he  was  in  full  sympathy  with  the  popular  movements 
in  France,  was  first  published  in  1796.  Coleridge  contributed 
some  lines  to  the  second  book. 

126,  27.  Anthology:  English  Anthology  for  1799-1800  in  2  vol- 
umes, edited  by  Southey. 

126,  20.  Poems  published  tinder  his  own  name:  Poems  on 
Various  Subjects,  by  S.  T.  Coleridge,  late  of  Jesus  College,  Cambridge, 
Bristol,  1796. 

127,  10.  Residing  at  Malta.  Coleridge  spent  the  time  from 
May,  1804  to  September  1805  at  Malta,  whither  he  had  gone  in  the 
hope  to  recover  his  health.  For  part  of  that  time  he  acted  as 
secretary  to  the  Governor,  Sir  Alexander  Ball. 

127,  26.  Mr.  Poole :  Thomas  Poole,  a  young  man  of  pronounced 
radical  views  who  was  one  of  Coleridge's  early  friends,  and  in  whose 
cottage  at  Nether  Stowey,  Coleridge  lived  from  the  beginning  of 
1797  to  the  summer  of  1798 — the  period  of  his  intimacy  with 
Wordsworth.  See  Hazlitt's  account  of  his  visit  to  the  two  poets  at 
that  time. 

128,  21.  Alfoxden:  the  house,  some  three  miles  distant  from 
Nether  Stowey,  which  Wordsworth  occui)ied. 

128,  33.  A  long  residence  in  France.  Wordsworth  was  in  France 
from  November,  1791  to  December,  1792;  he  spent  the  winter  of 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        351 

1798-99  in  Goslar,  Germany;  his  "regular  domestication  with  his 
sister  at  Racedown,"  had  been  in  1795-97,  just  before  he  came  to 
live  at  Alfoxden  near  Coleridge. 

129,  16.  The  Golden  Verses:  the  Aureum  Pythagoreorum  Car- 
men, seventy-one  verses  embodying  some  principles  of  the  Pythag- 
forean  philosophy.  They  are  by  an  unknown  author  and  date 
trom  the  second  century  B.  C.  There  is  no  mention  of  beans  in 
the  Golden  Verses;  but  they  are  forbidden  as  an  article  of  food  in 
various  places  in  the  Pythagorean  writings.  My  colleague,  Profes- 
sor William  A.  Heidel,  refers  me  to  the  following  instances: 

"He  bade  men  abstain  from  beans  for  many  reasons,  sacred  as  well 
as  natural  and  having  regard  to  tiie  soul." — lamblichus:  Life  of 
Pythagoras,  109. 

"He  advised  men  to  abstain  from  beans  as  they  would  from 
human  flesh." — Porphyry:  'Life  of  Pythagoras,  43 

A  full  set  of  references  on  the  bean  superstition  among  the 
ancients  may  be  found  in  Frazer's  Edition  of  Pausanias,  Vol.  IV, 
p.  240. 

A  great  variety  of  fanciful  reasons  have  been  alleged  for  this  rule 
forbidding  the  eating  of  beans.  Who  the  "German  author"  here 
referred  to  is,  I  do  not  know. 

I30»  30-  H3rnui  to  Chamoiini.  Coleridge  never  explained  this 
flagrant  case  of  plagiarism.  The  sentiments  of  the  poems  and  much 
of  its  noblest  imagery  are  certainly  taken  from  the  poem  of  Frederica 
Brun.     Coleridge  himself  was  never  in  the  vale  of  Chamouni. 

131,  25.  Bright  paiticular  star:  Shakespeare,  All's  Well  That 
Ends  Well,  Art.  I,  Sec.  i. 

131,  31.  Tormented  all  the  air:  Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  VI,  244. 
The  source  whence  De  Quincey  thinks  it  borrowed  is  probably, 
Iliad,  XIII,  673. 

131,  ^^.  A  weed  of  glorious  feature.  See  Wordsworth's  Beggars, 
1.  18. 

132,  10.  Fled  from  his  lion  ramp:  Milton,  Samson  Agonisles, 
136-139. 

132,  23.  Shelvocke:  George  Shelvocke,  author  of  A  Voyage 
round  the  World,  1719-22.     London,  1726;  second  Edition,  1757. 

I33>  23.  Schelling:  I'riedrich  Wilhelm  Joseph  von  Schelling, 
1775-1854.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Coleridge  was  greatly 
indebted  to  the  Natur  Philosophie  and  the  System  der  Idealismiis 
of  this  famous  German  philosopher.  How  far  he  was  himself  con- 
scious of  his  obligations  has  been  matter  of  dispute  ever  since  this 
charge   was   first   made    by   De   Quincey,     Professor    Ferrier,    of 


3  52        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Edinburgh  Universily,  repeated  and  enforced  the  charge  in  a  paper 
in  Blackwood' s  Magazine  (Vol.  XLVII,  287-289),  in  which  he  show? 
that  no  less  than  nineteen  pages  of  Coleridge's  work  are  almost 
literal  translations  from  Schelling.  The  daughter  of  Coleridge, 
Sara,  made  a  vigorous  defence  of  her  father  in  a  paper  now  usually- 
printed  as  an  Introduction  to  the  Biographia;  and  other  students 
have  been  ready  to  acquit  Coleridge  of  the  charge  of  intending  to 
appropriate  literally  without  credit  the  doctrines  of  Schelling. 
The  whole  question  of  the  indebtedness  of  Coleridge  to  his  German 
teachers  is  a  vexed  one.  Many  passages  in  his  Lectures  on  Shakes- 
peare certainly  show  a  very  close  resemblance  both  in  thought  and 
diction  to  the  writings  of  the  ^reat  German  Shakespeare  scholar 
August  Wilhelra  von  Schlegel.  De  Quincey's  position  with 
reference  to  the  passages  in  the  Biographia  is  curious;  he  seems 
first  to  make  the  charge  of  plagiarism  unequivocally,  and  then  to 
excuse  it. 

134,  I.  Fichte:  Johann  Gottlieb  Fichte  (1762-1814),  eminent 
philosopher,  professor  in  the  universities  of  Jena  and  Berlin. 

134,  31.  Not  John  Paul:  Jean  Paul  Friedrich  Richter  (1763- 
1825),  noveUst,  noted  for  the  romantic  luxuriance  of  his  style. 
De  Quincey  admired  his  writing,  and  was  perhaps  influenced  by 
it  in  his  own  Suspiria  de  Profuudis. 

135,  28,  Milton's  account  of  the  rubbish  .  .  .  Latin  Fathers. 
"Whatever  Time,  or  the  bhnd  hand  of  bhnd  Chance  hath  drawn 
down  from  of  old  to  this  present  in  her  huge  drag-net,  whether 
fish  or  seaweed,  shells  or  shrubs  unpicked,  unchosen,  these  are  the 
Fathers." — Of  Prelaiical  Episcopacy,  1641. 

135,  31.  An  African  Obeah  man.  Obi  or  oheah  is  the  name  of 
the  pretended  magic  practised  by  some  tribes  in  Africa  and  their 
descendants  in  America. 

138,  10.  Bourrienne:  Louis  Antoine  Fauvelet  de  Bourrienne 
(1769-1834),  private  secretary  to  Napoleon. 

I39»  34-  Chubb,  the  philosophic  writer:  Thomas  Chubb  (1679- 
1747),  a  prominent  deistical  writer. 

141,  28.  Orellana:  a  name  frequently  given  in  early  writings 
to  the  Amazon,  from  its  discoverer,  Francisco  de  Orellana. 

142,  i8.  Bishop  Berkeley's  Siris:  the  most  mature  expression 
of  the  idealistic  philosophy  of  the  philosopher  George  Berkeley 
(1685-1753).  He  was  a  firm  believer  in  the  medicinal  value  of 
tar- water;  and  in  this  remarkable  book  follows  a  curious  chain 
(Siris)  of  speculation  from  the  effects  of  the  tar-water  to  the  nature 
of  Life  and  Mind. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        353 

143,  2.  Hartley:  David  Hartley  (i 705-1757),  an  English  ma- 
terialistic philosopher  whose  writings  had  a  singular  attraction  for 
the  early  years  of  Coleridge,  though  he  soon  reversed  his  estimate 
of  them.  Hartley  explained  all  mental  actions  as  the  result  of 
the  vibrations  of  minute  nervous  particles,  which  he  called 
"vibratiuncles." 

144,  17.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  (1605-1682).  Inhis  Religio  Medici, 
a  noble  and  eloquent  confession  of  faith,  Browne  says,  "As  for  those 
wingy  mysteries  in  divinity,  and  airy  subtleties  in  rehgion,  which 
have  unhinged  the  brains  of  better  heads,  they  never  stretched  the 
pia  mater  of  mine.  Methinks  there  be  not  impossibilities  enough 
in  rehgion  for  an  active  faith:  the  deepest  mysteries  ours  contains 
have  not  only  been  illustrated,  but  maintained  by  syllogism  and 
the  rule  of  reason.  I  love  to  lose  myself  in  a  mystery;  to  pursue  my 
reason  to  an  0  altitudo!" 

144,  28.  A  Socinian:  one  who  holds  the  doctrines  taught  by 
two  Italian  theologians  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Laelius  Socinus 
and  Faustus  Socinus.  Socinians  deny  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
though  admitting  his  preeminent  character  as  a  teacher,  and  hold 
that  the  sacraments  of  baptism  and  the  Lord's  supper  are  com- 
memorative merely. 

14s,  4.  Kant:  Immanuel  Kant  (1724-1824),  most  celebrated  of 
modern  German  philosophers.  De  Quincey  had  given  considerable 
attention  to  the  work  of  Kant;  in  a  paper  pubhshed  in  Tail's 
Magazine  about  a  year  after  the  appearance  of  these  biographical 
sketches  (June,  1836),  "On  German  Studies  and  Kant  in  Par- 
ticular" he  attempts  a  resume  of  the  more  important  teachings  of 
Kant.  Modern  critics,  however,  have  questioned  the  value  of 
these  studies  of  German  philosophy.  Most  students  of  Kant 
would  hardly  assent  to  his  strictures  upon  the  religious  influence 
of  Kant  in  the  long  digression  given  here.  Professor  Masson's 
statement  is  probably  a  just  estimate  of  De  Quincey's  Kantian 
writing:  "The  accuracy  of  some  of  his  statements  about  Kant,  and 
indeed,  of  his  knowledge  of  Kant,  has  been  called  in  question  of 
late;  but  it  remains  to  his  credit  that  in  a  singularly  bleak  and 
vapid  period  of  the  native  British  philosophizing  he  had  con- 
tracted such  an  admiration,  all  in  all,  for  the  great  German  trans- 
cendentalist."    Life  of  De  Quincey,  ch.  xii. 

145,  10.  Gog  .  .  .  Magog:  two  colossal  efRgies  that  stand  in 
the  Guild  hall  of  London,  copies  of  those  placed  there  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  V.     Gog  and  Magog  are  mentioned  in  Revelation  xx,  8,  as 


354        Biographical  Sketches- and  Notes 

nations  "in  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth."  The  origin  of  the 
names  is  obscure. 

145,  15.  Apollyon:  the  most  terrible  enemy  of  Christian  in 
Bunyan's  Pilgrim^ s  Progress.  In  Revelation  ix,  ii,  he  is  called 
'the  angel  of  the  bottomless  pit." 

146,  8.  John  Hunter  (1728-1793),  noted  English  surgeon  and 
anatomist. 

148,  12.  Two  milliners  from  Bath: 

"  Coleridge,  long  before  his  flighty  pen 

Let  to  the  Morning  Post  its  aristocracy; 
When  he  and  Southey,  following  the  same  path, 
Espoused  two  partners  (milliners  of  Bath)." 

Don  Juan  III,  stanza  93. 

The  term  "milliner"  was  often  then  applied  to  a  woman  of  loose 
character — as  Byron  well  knew  when  he  wrote  these  lines.  Southey 
and  Coleridge  had  married  two  sisters,  the  Misses  Fricker,  of 
Bristol. 

148,  31.  Mr.  Cottle:  Joseph  Cottle,  a  Bristol  bookseller,  who 
befriended  the  early  literary  efforts  of  Coleridge,  and  published 
the  first  volume  of  his  poems.  Cottle's  volume  of  Reminiscences 
contains  much  interesting  information  as  to  the  early  life  of 
Coleridge  amd  Southey, 

148,  2>Z-  Hannah  More  (i 745-1843),  a  religious  writer  whose 
works  for  a  time  enjoyed  \vide  currency;  perhaps  best  remembered 
by  her  tract  The  Shepherd  of  Salisbury  Plain.  For  many  years,  in 
the  later  part  of  her  life  she  kept  a  school  for  young  ladies  in  Bristol, 
and  afterwards  at  Clifton. 

149,  12.  Her  retirement  at  Keswick.  Mrs.  Coleridge  passed 
most  of  her  life  after  1807  with  her  sister,  Mrs.  Southey  at  Keswick 
in  the  English  Lake  district. 

150,  28.  A  young  lady  became  a  neighbor.  The  young  lady 
here  referred  to  is  Wordsworth's  sister,  Dorothy,  who  lived  with  her 
brother  in  1797-98  at  Alfoxden,  while  Coleridge  was  living  at 
Nether  Stowey,  near  by.  The  paragraph  that  follows  is  a  good 
specimen  of  De  Quincey's  fondness  for  mere  gossip.  There  is  no 
other  reason  for  thinking  that  the  friendship  of  Dorothy  Words- 
worth for  the  Coleridges  was  ever  trying  to  the  "candour  and  good 
temper"  of  Mrs.  Coleridge;  and  some  of  the  alleged  facts  cited  by 
De  Quincey  could  have  only  been  known  to  him  through  irresponsible 
tittle-tattle.  It  was  such  writing  as  this  that  sometimes  vexed 
Wordsworth  and  the  other  friends  of  De  Quincey. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes         355 

152,  18.  Pandora:  in  Greek  mythology  the  first  woman.  In 
the  most  famiUar  form  of  the  myth  she  is  given  a  box  filled  with 
blessings,  which  she  carelessly  opened  and  allowed  all  the  blessings 
to  escape  except  hope. 

I53»  ^4-  Arthur  Young  (1741-1820),  English  traveler  and  writer 
on  agricultural  subjects.  His  chief  work  was  his  Travels  in  France, 
but  De  Quincey  here  seems  to  allude  especially  to  his  Political 
Arithmetic. 

I53>  31-  A  piteous  sight  it  was  to  see,  etc.  De  Quincey  is  quoting 
from  memory  and — as  he  too  often  does — inaccurately.  The 
lines  he  quotes  do  not  "come  after  a  description  of  Coleridge's 
countenance,"  and  it  is  pretty  certain  that  they  do  not  refer  to 
Coleridge  but  to  Wordsworth.  *'  There  can  now  be  no  doubt  that 
in  the  first  four  of  these  Stanzas,  Wordsworth  refers  to  himself; 
and  that  in  the  last  four,  he  refers  to  Coleridge." — Knight's  edition 
of  Wordsworth's  Poems,  ii,  p.  308. 

The  lines  here  quoted  are  the  first  two  of  the  third  stanza. 

155,  ir.  A  service  should  be  rendered  to  Mr.  Coleridge.  In 
November,  1807,  De  Quincey  sent  to  Coleridge  a  gift  of  three 
hundred  pounds.  At  that  time  De  Quincey  had  just  come  into 
his  inheritance  and  had  for  a  time  plenty  of  money. 

156,  16.  Some  continuous  sketch  of  his  life.  There  follows  in 
De  Quincey's  paper  an  extended  account  of  Coleridge's  career, 
omitted  in  this  volume  of  selections.  However  interesting,  it  is 
not  altogether  trustworthy.  The  latest  and  best  biographer  of 
Coleridge  says:  "The  whole  article  literally  bristles  with  blunders  of 
every  description.  Even  the  portions  which  relate  the  author's 
own  experience  and  observation  require  a  large  allowance  for  re- 
fraction."— James  Dykes  Campbell,  Introduction  to  Poetical  Works 
of  Coleridge,  page  Ixxiii. 

Meeting  with  Wordsworth 
In  the  last  days  of  December,  1799,  after  his  return  from  a  year's 
stay  in  Germany,  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  Dorothy,  took  up  their 
residence  in  the  little  "Dove  Cottage,"  Grasmere,  where  they  were 
living  at  the  time  of  De  Quincey's  visit. 

156,  21.  I  have  already  mentioned:  in  his  Oxford  Reminiscences, 
not  included  in  this  volume.     See  Masson's  Edition,  II,  p.  54. 

157,  12.  The  ancient  hills  .  .  .  sequestered  glens.  These  are  all 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  Grasmere  cottage.  Windermere  and  Der- 
wentwater  are  two  lakes,  the  one  in  the  southern  part  of  the  Lake 
District,  the  other  in  the  northern. 


356        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

158,  I.  Churchyard  amongst  the  mountains:  Books  VI  and  VII 
of  Wordsworth's  Excursion. 

158,  5.  Valdamo  and  Vallombrosa.  See  Milton's  Paradise 
Lost,  Book  I,  lines  290  and  303.  Val'd'Arno,  "the  valley  of  the 
Arno,"  in  which  Florence  lies;  and  Vallombrosa  "a  shady  valley" 
some  fifteen  miles  distant. 

158,  9.  Could  field  or  grove,  etc.  See  Wordsworth's  Excursion, 
Book  VI,  lines  806-810. 

159,  22.  White  cottage.  "Dove  Cottage" — so  called  because 
once  the  Dove  and  Olive  Bough  Inn — was  the  home  of  Wordsworth 
from  the  beginning  of  1800  to  the  summer  of  1808;  De  Quincey 
occupied  it  from  1809  to  1830.  Some  twenty  years  ago  it  was 
bought  by  lovers  of  Wordsworth  to  prevent  it  from  further  decay, 
and  presented  to  the  nation;  it  is  now  always  open  to  visitors. 

160,  7.  In  early  youth  I  labored.  The  passage  that  follows  is 
very  suggestive.  Later  in  life  De  Quincey  gained  most  remarkable 
power  to  do  just  this — to  follow  out  all  the  "subsidiary  thoughts 
into  which  one  leading  thought  often  radiates,"  and  to  "deal  with 
topics  in  which  the  understanding  combined  with  deep  feelings  to 
suggest  mixed  and  tangled  thoughts."  It  is  the  most  noteworthy 
peculiarity  of  his  mental  action  and  his  literary  style. 

160,  32.  A  worldly  tone  of  sentiment  in  Wordsworth:  one  of 
the  numerous  examples  of  a  strain  of  petty  malice  in  De  Quincey. 
There  is  no  reason  for  this  charge. 

161,  8.  Malta.     See  note  on  line  10,  page  127. 

161,  13.  Engaged  by  the  Royal  Institution  to  lecture:  a  course 
of  sixteen  lectures  on  "The  Principles  of  Poetry." 

161,  16.  Conveying  his  family  to  Keswick.  In  1880,  after  his 
return  from  a  year's  stay  on  the  continent,  Coleridge  leased  a 
house,  Greta  Hall,  in  Keswick  and  removed  thither  with  his 
family;  but  he  was  much  away,  and  in  1803,  Robert  Southey, 
coming  to  visit  the  Coleridges  at  Greta  Hall,  remained  there  the 
rest  of  his  life.  Coleridge  himself  was  there  but  seldom  after  about 
1803.  Mrs.  Coleridge  after  this  visit  on  which  she  was  escorted 
by  De  Quincey,  never  lived  steadily  anywhere  else. 

161,  26.  A  very  interesting  family.  This  passage  of  purely 
irrelevant  gossip  about  the  Koster  family  is  a  good  example  of 
De  Quincey's  divagations. 

162,  16.  Talavera:  a  town  in  Spain  where  Wellington  defeated 
the  French,  in  1909. 

162,  20.  Madame  Catalani:  Angelica  Catalani  (i 779-1849),  a 
famous  Italian  singer. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        357 

162,  28.  Lady  Hamilton  (1761-1815):  wife  of  the  English 
Ambassador  at  Naples,  Sir  William  Hamilton.  She  is  remembered 
as  the  mistress  of  Lord  Nelson,  who  could  never  throw  of3f  his 
infatuation  for  her. 

163,  Q.  White  Moss.  The  name  indicates  that  on  the  top  of 
the  hill  there  was  a  "moss"  or  swamp. 

164,  4.  Semele:  who  prayed  to  see  Jove  and  was  consumed  by 
his  lightnings. 

164,  ;i^.  Roman  nomenclator.  The  nomenclator  attended  the 
candidate  for  office  in  his  canvass  to  name  the  persons  met. 

165,  26.  Mrs.  Wordsworth.  Wordsworth  married,  in  1802,  his 
cousin,  Mary  Hutchinson,  whom  he  had  known  since  they  had 
been  school  children  together. 

166,  5.  Mr.  Slave-trade  Clarkson:  Thomas  Clarkson  (1762- 
1846),  English  Abolitionist,  a  friend  of  both  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge. 

167,  8.  Like  stars  of  twilight  fair :  carelessly  quoted;  Wordsworth 
wrote: 

"Her  eyes  as  stars  of  Twilight  fair; 
Like  Twilight's,  too,  her  dusky  hair." 

167,  28.  Her  face  was  of  Egyptian  brown:  Wordsworth,  Beggars, 
line  7:  "Her  skin  was  of  Egyptian  brown." 

167,  32.  Wild  and  startling.  See  the  references  to  Dorothy 
Wordsworth  in  the  Lines  above  Tiniern  Abbey: 

"...   and  read 
My  former  pleasures  in  the  shooting  lights 

Of  thy  wild  eyes 

.    .    .   nor  catch  from  thy  wild  eyes  these  gleams 
Of  past  existence." 

168,  31.  German  charcoal-burners.  Dorothy  was  with  her 
brother  during  his  year  in  Germany. 

171,  5.  Half -kitchen  and  half-parlor  fire:  the  last  line  of  the 
original  version  of  Wordsworth's  sonnet  Personal  Talk.  He  after- 
wards altered  it — for  the  worse — so  that  the  last  four  lines  ran: 

"To  sit  without  emotion,  hope,  or  aim, 
In  the  loved  presence  of  my  cottage  fire 
And  listen  to  the  flapping  of  the  flame. 
Or  kettle  whispering  its  fainl  undersongs" 


358        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

172,  17.  Upon  the  whole,  not  a  well-made  man.  De  Quincey's 
curious  liking  for  half-malicious  gossip  is  seen  in  these  comments 
on  Wordsworth's  bad  legs,  Dorothy's  awkward  stoop,  and  Mrs. 
Wordsworth's  "obliquity  of  vision." 

173,  2.  Elegantes  formarum  spectatrices :  "Elegant  critics  of 
beauty";  altered  from  the  Eunucbus  of  Terence,  III,  5,  18. 

174,  13.  Haydon:  Benjamin  Haydon,  a  noted  Enghsh  historical 
painter,  who  was  acquainted  with  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and 
Lamb.  His  work  was  not  well  appreciated,  and  in  disappointment 
he  committed  suicide,  in  1846.  The  picture  referred  to  in  the  te.xt 
is  now  in  Cincinnati. 

174,  15.  Voltaire:  Francois  Marie  Arouet  (1694- 17 78),  who 
assumed  the  name  de  Voltaire;  a  famous  French  poet,  dramatist, 
and  critic,  well  known  for  his  attitude  toward  historical  Christianity. 
— "Sapping  a  solemn  creed  with  solemn  sneer,"  as  Byron  says  in 
Childe  Harold. 

174,  28.  Miss  Ferrier:  Susan  Ferrier  (1782-1854),  Scottish 
novelist  and  a  friend  of  Walter  Scott.  Her  other  novels  are  The 
Inheritance  and  Destiny. 

174,  31.  England  is  not  the  land  of  roimd  faces.  Notice  this 
long  excursus  for  the  next  two  pages  suggested  by  the  question 
whether  Wordsworth  had  a  long  face. 

176,  3.  Irving,  the  pulpit  orator:  Edward  Irving  (179 2-1834), 
Scottish  preacher  and  friend  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  who  came  up  to 
London,  founded  a  new  church  with  pecuhar  doctrines  and  ritual, 
and  was  famous  for  his  pulpit  eloquence. 

177,  2.  Peter's  Letters:  Peter's  Letters  to  His  Kinsfolk  (1819), 
by  John  Gibson  Lockhart,  is  a  series  of  brilliant  and  often  caustic 
sketches  of  men  and  things  in  the  Edinburgh  of  that  time.  Lock- 
hart's  most  familiar  work  is  his  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  He  married 
Scott's  eldest  daughter. 

177,  21.  The  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea:  from  Words- 
worth's Elegiac  Stanzas  on  a  Picture  of  Peele  Castle.  There,  how- 
ever, the  line  runs — 

"The  light  that  never  was,  on  sea  or  land." 

178,  14.  Richardson  the  painter.  "Jonathan  Richardson  (born 
about  1665,  died  1745)  pubhshed  in  1734  a  volume  of  Explanatory 
Notes  and  Remarks  on  Paradise  Lost,  with  a  life  of  JVIilton  con- 
taining particulars  which  Richardson  had  collected  about  Milton 
personally." — Masson's  Note. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        359 

179,  28.  Those  shocks  of  passion  to  prepare.  See  Wordsworth's 
Lament  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  stanza  6. 

i8o,  4.  That  account  which  the  Excursion  presents.  The 
passage  referred  to  is  the  first  three  hundred  lines  of  Book  First, 
especially  lines  279-300. 

180,  19.  A  premature  expression  of  old  age.  This  was  more 
true  of  De  Quincey  himself,  who  was  one  of  the  most  ancient, 
dessicated  looking  of  men,  though  not  yet  in  his  sixties. 

181,  24.  Lived  into  his  82nd  year:  not  quite;  he  died  April  23, 
1850,  having  just  entered  his  8ist  year. 

182,  31.  Archimedes  :  the  celebrated  geometrician,  died  212  B.  C. 
Apollonius.  Probably  De  Quincey  refers  to  the  Apollonius,  sur- 
named  Pergaeus,  a  famous  Greek  geometer  nearly  contemporaneous 
with  Archimedes. 

182,  32.  The  starry  Galileo:  the  famous  Italian  astronomer 
(1564-1642).  The  epithet  "starry"  is  from  Byron's  Childe 
Harold,  iv,  34. 

183,  9.  The  English  language.  This  foolish  prediction  as  to 
the  influence  of  "the  dreadful  republic"  upon  the  spread  of  the 
English  language,  is  amusing. 

Levana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow 

In  the  number  of  Blackwood's  Magazine  for  March,  1845,  ap- 
peared the  first  of  a  projected  series  of  papers  by  De  Quincey 
which  were  to  bear  the  collective  title,  Suspiria  de  profundis; 
being  a  Sequel  to  the  Confessions  of  an  English  opium  Eater.  The 
March  number  contained  an  Introductory  Note  on  Dreaming  and 
the  story  of  his  sister's  death  with  his  reveries  upon  it,  which  he 
called  The  Affliction  of  Childhood.  In  the  April  number  there  were 
only  a  few  short  autobiographic  passages;  but  in  June  appeared 
four  more  papers  in  the  series.  The  Palimpsest,  The  A  pparition  of 
the  Brocken,  Savannh-la-Mar,  and  Levana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow. 
De  Quincey  apparently  intended  to  include  in  his  general  scheme  a 
very  considerable  number  of  these  dream-like  sketches  and  narra- 
tives, arranging  the  whole  in  four  groups  or  Parts;  but  he  never 
could  complete  the  plan.  A  long  and  striking  paper  of  the  same 
character.  The  English  Mail  Coach,  with  its  accompanying  "  dream 
fugues,"  was  probably  intended  for  the  series;  but  it  appeared  in 
Blackivood  for  October  and  December,  1849,  without  any  hint  of 
such  intention.  Several  other  fragmentary  pieces  and  the  titles  for 
a  considerable  number  more,  printed  by  Mr.  Japp  in  his  Posthumous 


360        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Works  of  De  Quincey  indicate  tiie  ambitious  nature  of  De  Quincey's 
plan. 

Of  all  these  papers,  the  one  printed  in  this  volume,  Levana  and 
Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow  is  unquestionably  the  best.  ]\Ir.  Masson 
hardly  e.xaggerates  when  he  calls  it  "one  of  the  most  magnificent 
pieces  of  prose  in  the  English  or  any  other  language." 

186,  7.  On  the  foundation:  receiving  the  income  of  a  scholar- 
ship fund. 

188,  8.  In  Rama.     See  Jeremiah,  xx.xi,  15;  Si.  Matthew,  ii,  18. 

188,  II.  Bethlehem  .  .  .  when  Herod's  sword.  See  St. 
Matthew,  ii,  16. 

189,  4.  Within  the  bedchamber  of  the  Czar.  The  Princess 
Alexandra,  daughter  of  the  Czar  Nicholas,  died  in  August,  1844. 

190,  2.  Norfolk  Island:  in  the  south  Pacific,  east  of  Australia, 
was  through  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  penal  settle- 
ment for  Great  Britain. 

190,  27.  The  tents  of  Shem.  See  Genesis,  ix,  27.  Shem  is 
traditionally  represented  as  the  ancestor  of  the  Semitic  races. 

191,  3.  Cybele:  in  Greek  mythology  the  daughter  of  Cronos  and 
mother  of  the  Olympian  gods.  She  was  usually  represented  as 
wearing  a  mural  crown — that  is  a  crown  whose  rim  is  carved  in  the 
form  of  towers. 

Queries  and  Suggestions 

Meeting  with  Coleridge. 

1.  From  what  other  essay  have  you  learned  something  of  ]\Ir. 
Poole  and  the  village  of  Nether  Stowey? 

2.  On  page  136,  De  Quincey  says:  "I  return  to  my  narrative"; 
how  long  before  had  he  left  it?  Is  this  characteristic  of  his  method 
of  narrative? 

3.  Can  you  see  any  peculiarities  of  De  Quincey's  writing  in  his 
long  account  of  the  obligations  of  Coleridge  to  German  writers? 
What,  on  the  whole,  do  you  understand  De  Quincey's  verdict  to 
be  on  this  charge  against  Coleridge? 

4.  The  talk  of  Coleridge,  as  De  Quincey  describes  it. 

5.  De  Quincey's  first  impressions  of  Coleridge  compared  with 
Hazlitt's.  What  was  the  age  of  each  at  his  first  meeting  with 
Coleridge? 

6.  The  two  interviews  were  about  eight  years  apart;  do  you  see 
by  a  comparison  of  Hazlitt's  account  with  De  Quincey's,  any 
evidences  of  change  in  Coleridge  in  these  years? 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        361 

7.  Is  the  paragraph  on  Kant,  page  145,  of  any  value  to  the 
narrative? 

8.  Point  out  in  the  paragraphs,  pages  149-152,  some  instances 
of  De  Quincey's  liking  for  mere  gossip  and  tittle-tattle. 

Meeting  with  Words-worth. 

1.  Notice  at  the  opening  of  the  paper,  De  Quincey's  character- 
istic analysis,  both  of  the  feelings  which  did  tiot  prevent  an  earlier 
visit  to  Wordsworth,  and  of  those  which  did. 

2.  Show  the  significance  of  some  statements  in  the  paragraph,  page 
160,  as  explaining  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  De  Quincey's  style. 

3.  Have  the  statements  about  the  Kosters  page  162,  any  proper 
place  in  De  Quincey's  narrative? 

4.  What  characteristic  excellences  of  De  Quincey's  manner  in 
narrative  and  description  can  you  point  out  in  the  next  paragraphs, 
pp.  164-174? 

5.  On  the  other  hand,  do  you  find  in  these  paragraphs  any  in- 
stances of  mere  gossip,  of  no  value  to  his  narrative? 

6.  Do  you  think  Wordsworth  was  likely  to  be  pleased  by  De 
Quincey's  account  of  his  personal  appearance  pp.  171- 174. 

7.  What  peculiarity  of  De  Quincey's  manner  is  well  illustrated  by 
the  paragraph,  pp.  174-177? 

8.  Have  the  last  two  paragraphs  any  justifiable  connection  with 
the  narrative? 

Levana  and  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow. 

1.  This  paper  is  the  best  example  of  De  Quincey's  prose  poetry, 
in  what  respects,  both  in  subject  and  in  manner,  does  it  resemble 
poetry?  Do  you  think  its  effect  would  have  been  increased  if  the 
same  thoughts  and  imagery  had  been  expressed  in  verse — if  it 
had  been  poetry? 

2.  What  phase  of  De  Quincey's  genius  is  strikingly  shown  in 
the  paper? 

Show  by  reference  to  particular  passages  in  the  essays  read,  the 
following  peculiarities  of  De  Quincey's  writing: 

1.  His  paragraph  structure—the  arts  by  which  he  preserves 
unity  in  long  and  complex  paragraphs. 

2.  His  diffuseness,  liking  to  enumerate  details,  and  to  pursue  a 
thought  into  all  its  ramifications. 

3.  His  inveterate  tendency  to  digression,  "divagation." 

4.  His  gift  for  the  analysis  of  character. 

5.  The  rhythm  and  melody  of  his  style. 

6.  His  interest  in  the  remote,  unusual,  unobvious. 

7.  His  excessive  egoism. 


362        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY 

Shortly  before  his  death  Thackeray  expressed  to  his  daughter  an 
urgent  wish  that  no  formal  biography  of  him  should  be  written. 
It  was  characteristic  of  him  to  dread  alike  fulsome  praise  and  un- 
just blame.  His  wish  has  been  respected;  no  detailed  account  of 
his  life  has  ever  been  published.  But  none  is  needed.  The  leonine, 
warmhearted,  generous  satirist  that  his  contemporaries  knew,  still 
lives  for  us  in  all  his  writings.  No  author  gives  a  more  vivid  impres- 
sion of  his  personality.  He  belongs  to  that  small  group  of  writers, 
like  Charles  Lamb  and  Richard  Steele,  with  whom  we  have  always 
a  sense  of  personal  acquaintance.  We  know  the  man  even  better 
than  we  know  his  books. 

WiUiam  Makepeace  Thackeray  was  born  in  Calcutta,  India,  in 
181 1.  His  father  died  when  Thackeray  was  only  five  years  old, 
and  shortly  after,  the  boy  was  sent  to  England  and  placed  in  the 
Charterhouse  school,  where  he  spent  six  years.  He  is  said  not  to 
have  enjoyed  his  stay  there;  yet  he  always  had  a  certain  fondness  for 
the  old  school,  with  its  memories  of  Steele  and  Addison,  and  pic- 
tures of  "Gray  Friars"  every  one  remembers  in  Poidcnnis  and  the 
Ncwcomes.  In  1829  he  was  entered  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 
He  stayed  there,  however,  only  a  year,  and  next  year  found  him  in 
Weimar.  Here  he  lived  about  a  year,  learned  some  German,  saw 
the  great  Goethe  "three  times,"  read  Schiller — whom  he  liked 
better — spent  his  money  now  and  then  at  roulette,  idled  a  good 
deal,  and  formed  a  real  liking  for  the  simple  society  of  the  "dear 
little  Weimar  town."  Next  year  he  was  back  in  London  again, 
settled  in  the  Temple  chambers  reading  law.  He  had  decided  upon 
his  profession — or  thought  he  had.  His  experience  in  the  Temple 
chambers  gave  him  some  interesting  material  for  the  biography  of 
Arthur  Pendennis  and  George  Warrington;  but  his  apprenticeship  to 
the  legal  profession  did  not  last  long.  In  1832  he  came  of  age,  and 
finding  himself  in  possession  of  a  comfortable  income,  bade  good-bye 
to  the  Temple  and  the  law.  The  moderate  fortune  he  had  inherited 
he  seems  rather  speedily  to  have  got  rid  of.  Part  of  it  was  invested 
in  two  short-lived  newspapers;  something  was  sunk  in  an  unfor- 
tunate Indian  bank;  and  some  of  it  probably  was  lost  at  play.  At 
all  events,  by  the  beginning  of  1834,  his  pockets  were  almost  empty, 
and  he  was  studying  art  in  Paris.  His  art  studies,  though  they  soon 
convinced  him  that  he  was  never  to  be  an  artist,  did  help  to  make 
him  an  amazingly  cle\-er  caricaturist,  as  his  illustrations  in  his 
own  books  will  show.     But  they  did  not  put  much  money  in  his 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        363 

purse.  He  had  from  boyhood  a  knack  at  turning  a  humorous 
paragraph  or  writing  a  copy  of  satiric  verses,  and  he  now  tried 
journalism.  As  earl)'  as  that  year  1834,  he  seems  to  have  contrib- 
uted some  brief  papers  to  Eraser's  Magazine,  next  year  he  was 
Paris  correspondent  of  the  Times,  and  between  1836  and  1842  was 
writing  constantly  for  Frascr,  the  New  Monthly  Magazine,  Punch, 
and  other  less  prominent  periodicals.  The  Yellowplush  Papers,  the 
Shabby  Genteel  Story,  Catherine,  and  the  best  of  his  early  works, 
The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond,  all  belong  to  this  period. 

It  was  not  altogether  a  careless  and  Bohemian  life.  In  1836  he 
married.  Four  years  afterwards  his  wife  was  attacked  by  a  mental 
illness  which  soon  proved  incurable  and  made  it  necessary  that  she 
should  be  placed  under  proper  care  for  the  rest  of  her  life.  Thus 
the  young  husband — not  yet  thirty — was  left  with  his  two  little 
girls,  homeless.  JSIany  years  after,  he  wrote  to  a  young  American 
friend,  "I  married  at  your  age,  with  £400  paid  by  a  newspaper 
which  failed  six  months  afterward,  and  always  love  to  hear  of  a 
young  fellow  testing  his  fortune  bravely  that  way.  Though  my 
marriage  was  a  wreck,  as  you  know,  I  would  do  it  over  again;  for 
behold  Love  is  the  crown  and  completion  of  all  earthly  good." 

There  were  disappointments  as  well  as  sorrow  in  those  years  from 
1840  to  1848.  He  was  working  hard.  The  Snob  Papers  and  many 
of  the  delightful  Ballads  appeared  in  Punch  in  that  period;  the 
Barry  Lyndon,  really  a  little  masterpiece,  came  out  in  1844;  and  he 
was  sending  slighter  sketches  to  half  a  dozen  periodicals.  Yet  he 
had  not  got  the  ear  of  the  public.  His  contemporary  Dickens,  in 
precisely  those  years,  was  writing  his  best  novels,  and  by  1848 
England  and  America  were  ringing  with  his  plaudits.  No  one,  we 
may  be  sure,  could  feel  sorrow  or  disappointment  more  keenly  than 
Thackeray.  Any  one  who  reads  between  the  lines  of  his  writing  at 
this  time  may  catch  underneath  all  its  humor,  notes  of  profound 
sadness.  The  Ballad  of  Boidlibaisse  and  The  End  of  the  Play,  for 
example,  are  among  the  most  genuinely  pathetic  of  modern  poems. 
A  man  less  courageous  or  less  kindly  might  have  been  driven  into 
melancholy  or  cynicism.  As  it  was,  his  experience  strengthened 
his  resolves,  broadened  his  sympathies,  taught  him  the  real  good 
and  evil  of  life,  so  that  when  he  came  to  write  his  great  novels  he 
was  the  most  brave,  truthful,  broad-minded,  tender-hearted  satirist 
that  ever  wrote  English. 

At  last,  in  1848,  appeared  the  Vanity  Fair,  and  the  period  of  trial 
and  experiment  was  ended.  Here  was  undoubtedly  a  great  novel; 
a  picture  of  contemporary  society  such  as  had  not  been  given  in 


364        Biographical  Sketclies  and  Notes 

England  since  the  days  of  Henry  Fielding.  Henceforth  Thackeray  'g 
position  was  assured.  The  great  novels  followed  in  rapid  succession, 
Pendcnnis  in  1850,  Esmond  in  1852,  The  Newcomes  in  1855.  While 
at  work  upon  the  Esmond  he  prepared  a  series  of  lectures  on  The 
English  Humorists,  which  he  delivered  in  London  in  185 1;  he  re- 
peated them  in  other  EngUsh  cities,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1852  came 
over  to  America  to  give  them  here.  They  were  received  so  favorably 
by  his  American  audiences  that,  three  years  later,  in  1855,  he  again 
made  a  visit  to  America  as  a  lecturer,  this  time  giving  a  course  upon 
The  Four  Georges.  Some  of  his  admirers  have  regretted  that  he 
spent  upon  these  lectures  the  time  and  strength  that  might  have 
given  us  more  novels;  but  it  may,  at  all  events,  be  urged  that  the 
English  Humorists  are  almost  perfect  models  of  what  a  popular 
literary  lecture  should  be.  Perhaps  nowhere  in  equal  compass  can 
be  found  so  vivid  a  picture  of  the  literary  life  of  the  early  eighteenth 
centur3^ 

Thackeray  had  been  induced  to  give  his  Lectures  largely  by  the 
hope  to  improve  his  financial  condition.  His  novels  had  made  him 
widely  known,  but  they  had  not  restored  his  fortune.  He  was  fond 
of  society,  generous,  and  never  ver}^  careful  in  the  management  of 
money;  but  now  that  his  daughters  were  growing  to  young  woman- 
hood he  was  almost  feverishly  anxious  to  secure  a  home  and  com- 
petence for  them.  This  anxiety  was  probably  increased  sometimes 
by  fear  for  his  own  health.  A  serious  illness  while  he  was  writing 
the  Pendennis  had  left  some  permanent  weakness  which  had  been 
aggravated  by  the  strain  of  travel  and  public  speaking  in  his  lecture 
tours.  This  decline  of  vigor  is  seen  in  his  next  novel,  The  Vir- 
ginians, 1859,  which  most  readers  will  pronounce  inferior  to  its 
predecessors.  At  the  close  of  that  year,  1859,  he  accepted  a  liberal 
offer  to  assume  the  editorial  control  of  a  new  magazine  his  publish- 
ers were  to  establish.  The  first  number  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine 
appeared  in  January,  i860,  and  Thackeray  continued  in  charge  of 
it  until  April,  1862.  Lovel  the  Widower,  the  poorest  of  all  his  later 
works,  was  printed  in  the  early  numbers,  followed  in  the  course  of 
the  next  year  by  Philip.  Neither  of  these  novels  can  be  classed 
among  his  best.  But  the  series  of  editorial  essays  furnished  the 
Magazine  month  by  month  under  the  title  of  The  Roundabout 
Papers,  showed  him  in  a  new  and  most  congenial  role.  They  con- 
tain much  of  his  wisest  and  most  wholesome  satire,  written  in  his 
most  delightful  manner.  There  is  nothing  else  of  the  kind  quite  so 
good  in  our  literature. 

But  the  care  and  vexations  incident  to  his  editorial  work  told  so 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        365 

heavily  upon  him  and  left  him  so  little  leisure  for  any  other  literary 
plans,  that  he  felt  obliged  to  resign  the  position.  His  fortune  had 
been  in  good  degree  repaired.  He  now  leased  a  large  and  commo- 
dious house,  and  looked  forward  to  years  of  quiet  life  and  work  at 
home  with  his  daughters.  He  was  but  a  little  past  fifty,  and  as 
young  at  heart  as  ever;  but  the  labors  and  vicissitudes  of  his  life  had 
silvered  his  hair  and  given  him  the  look  of  age.  For  years  his 
friends  had  spoken  of  him,  half  tenderly,  as  "old  Thackeray." 
He  set  himself  at  work  upon  a  new  novel,  Denis  Duval,  which 
promised  to  be  as  good  as  the  Esmond.  But  it  was  never  finished. 
In  the  last  weeks  of  December,  1863,  he  had  been  slightly  ailing;  on 
Christmas  morning  he  was  found  dead  in  his  bed. 

Thackeray  was  always  essentially  a  satirist.  He  loved  society, 
the  urbane,  conventionalized  society  of  the  club  and  the  drawing- 
room;  and  he  had  a  quick  eye  for  all  its  humors  and  lollies.  In  his  , 
earliest  writing  there  is  little  but  mere  fun,  and  indeed,  to  the  end  oi  \y 
life  he  enjoyed — as  every  healthy  man  does — the  ridiculous  phases 
of  the  human  comedy.  Yet  from  the  start  his  satire  has  its  roots 
in  ethical  motive.  He  was  always  the  foe  of  all  falsehood  and  pre- 
tence; but  he  laughed  at  shams  because  he  loved  the  truth.  It  was 
the  love  ot  whatsoever  was  true  and  pure  that  kept  his  satire  whole- 
some and  kindly.  With  the  widening  knowledge  of  life  which  came 
with  his  period  of  struggle  and  disappointment  his  satire  grew  more 
serious  and  stern;  yet  even  in  the  first  great  novel.  Vanity  Fair,  the 
dominant  motive  is  not  so  much  righteous  indignation  against 
falsehood  and  selfishness  as  admiration  for  the  unselfish  love  that 
can  lend  nobility  and  beauty  to  characters  homely  like  Dobbin,  or 
humble  like  the  Sedleys.  Vanity  Fair  is  really  a  putting  ot  the 
extreme  case  for  love.  But  in  the  work  of  the  following  years  the 
satire  grows  more  mellow  and  gentle.  The  characters  we  remember 
are  the  good  women  and  the  honest  men — Pendennis  and  Warring- 
ton, "and  Colonel  Newcome,  and  Ethel  and  Laura,  and  the  Little 
Sister.  It  was  love  that  made  all  these  later  novels — the  love  of 
Love.  Nothing  could  be  more  absurdly  unjust  than  the  charge  of 
cynicism  that  sometimes  used  to  be  brought  against  Thackeray. 
One  would  think  nobody  could  read  his  books  without  finding  in 
them  a  great  force  of  human  sympathy,  a  love  of  all  things  pure  and 
noble,  growing  deeper  all  his  days.  Doubtless  the  satirist  must 
show  us  falsehood  and  meanness  as  he  sees  them;  but  this  satirist's 
laugh  was  never  bitter  or  cold,  and  he  never  really  wrote  a  line  of 
cynicism. 

This  volume  has  nothing  to  do  with  Thackeray's  art  as  a  novelist. 


366        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Judged  by  some  modern  standards,  his  novels  probably  lack  definite 
plot  and  rapid  action.  They  read  more  like  transcripts  of  actual 
ordinary  life;  and  in  ordinary  life  there  is  not  elaborate  plot  or  rapid 
action.  But  at  all  events  they  have  amazing  reality,  and  they  in- 
troduce us  to  a  company  of  very  genuine  men  and  women.  Beatrix 
Esmond,  Becky  Sharp,  Arthur  Pendennis,  Philip — these  people  are 
as  living  as  Hamlet — or  your  next  door  neighbor.  Some  critics 
have  objected  also  that  Thackeray  stops  in  his  story  to  preach,  too 
often  and  too  long.  But  some  of  us  think  that  this  only  gives 
verisimilitude  to  his  narrative;  and,  moreover,  Thackeray  himself 
is  quite  as  interesting  as  any  of  his  people.  In  this  habit,  as  in 
some  other  respects,  Thackeray  is  following  one  of  the  greatest 
masters  of  fiction,  Henry  Fielding. 

It  is  only  one  form  of  Thackeray's  work  that  can  be  illustrated 
in  this  volume;  but  this  shows  him  at  his  very  best.  The  Round- 
about Papers  are  the  familiar,  almost  confidential  talk  of  a  man  who 
combines  the  wisdom  of  years  with  the  buoyancy  of  youth.  Among 
Thackeray's  favorite  authors  were  three  great  masters  of  the 
personal  essay,  Montaigne — whose  Essays  he  says  was  one  of  his  bed- 
time books — Joseph  Addison,  and  William  Hazlitt;  nothing  any 
one  of  them  ever  wrote  surpasses  these  Roundabout  Papers  in  the 
charm  of  personality  displayed.     In  these  essays  there  is  humor 

,         now  caustic  and  now  jovial,  but  never  bitter  and  never  frivolous; 

V  sentiment  that  never  sinks  to  sentimentality;  wisdom  that  never 
falls  into  platitude.  Above  all,  along  with  the  old  strenuous  love  of 
truth,  there  is  that  broad  humanity,  that  great-hearted  charity, 
sometimes  touched  with  melancholy,  that  marks  Thackeray's 
ripest  years.  Read  these  papers  and  you  will  understand  why  men 
older  than  he,  like  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  not  given  to  sentimentality, 
called  him  "dear  old  Thackeray."  Truth,  courage,  honor,  purity, 
gentleness — all  the  virtues  of  the  gentleman;  who  is  there  who  has 
preached  them  more  effectively?  • 

It  only  remains  to  add  that  in  style  the  Roundabout  Papers  are 
models  of  that  most  difficult  of  literary  virtues,  ease.  Thackeray's 
writing,  however  familiar,  even  colloquial,  has  always  a  certain 
urbane  distinction,  and  in  its  best  passages  a  charm  of  movement 
and  music  which  echoes  its  gracious  sentiment. 

The  Round.'Vbout  Papers 

Thackeray  was  editor  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine  from  its  first 
number  in  January,  7860.  to  April,  186 -.     "Xhe.  Roundabout  Papers 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        367 

were  printed  monthly  as  editorials  during  that  period;  but  he  con- 
tinued to  write  for  the  Magazine  frequently  after  he  had  resigned 
the  editorship,  and  the  last  of  the  Roundabouts  appeared  only  a  few 
days  before  his  death. 

Nil  Nisi  Bonum 

(Title.)  Nil  Nisi  Bonum:  "Nothing  unless  Good,"  i.e.,  Say 
nothing  unless  j'-ou  can  say  good  things. 

193,  I.  Sir  Walter:  Sir  Walter  Scott's  last  words  to  his  son-in- 
law  and  biographer. 

193,  7.  The  Goldsmith  and  Gibbon  of  our  time.  Goldsmith  and 
Gibbon  may  be  considered  the  typical  essayist  and  historian  of  the 
mid-eighteenth  century. 

193,  14.  The  first  Ambassador  whom  the  New  World  of  Letters 
sent  to  the  Old.  Irving  was  Secretary  to  the  American  legation 
in  London  from  1829  to  1832;  it  is  perhaps  this  period  of  official 
residence  to  which  Thackeray  especially  refers.  But  Irving  had 
been  in  London  most  of  the  time  from  1815  to  1826,  and  several  of 
his  works — The  Sketch  Book,  Talcs  of  a  Traveler,  Bracebridge  Hall — ■ 
had  been  published  there,  making  him  generally  known  to  the 
English  public. 

194,  8.  Warhad  just  renewed:  the  war  with  England,  1812-1814. 

195,  24.  His  charming  little  domain :  "Sunnyside,"  at  Irvington. 

196,  II.  He  had  loved  once  in  his  life.  He  was  engaged  to  be 
married  to  Miss  Matilda  Hoffman  of  New  York,  who  died  in  1809, 
when  only  eighteen  years  of  age. 

197,  30.  Gallant  yomig  Bellot:  Joseph  Rene  Bellot,  a  lieutenant 
in  the  French  navy  who  joined  as  a  volunteer  the  English  expedi- 
tion sent  in  search  of  Sir  John  Franklin,  in  1851,  and  was  lost  in  an 
ice  crevasse. 

198,  12.  A  place  in  the  senate  is  straightway  offered  the  young 
man.  Macaulay  entered  parliament  in  1828,  when  only  thirty 
years  of  age.  "His  first  speech  on  the  Reform  Bill  placed  him  in 
the  front  rank  of  orators." — Morley,  Life  of  Macaulay. 

198,  20.  In  the  East.  Macaulay  was  in  India  as  legal  adviser 
to  the  Supreme  Council  from  1834  to  1837. 

198,  28.  K.  K.  Court  officials:  abbreviation  for  kaiserlich- 
kciniglich  (imperial-royal). 

198,  29.  Napoleon  or  dating  from  Schonbrunn.  After  the  vic- 
tory of  Austerlits  (Dec.  2,  1805)  Napoleon  occupied  for  a  time  the 
imperial  castle  of  Schonbrunn,  near  Vienna,  and  three  weeks  later 
signed  there  a  treaty  with  Prussia. 


368        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

199,  18.  Senior  wrangler :  in  Cambridge  university,  the  student 
taking  first  place  in  the  public  examination  for  honors  in  mathe- 
matics. 

200,  28.  Domes  of  Peters  and  Pauls,  Sophia,  Pantheon:  Saint 
Peter's  in  Rome,  Saint  Paul's  in  London,  Santa  Sophia  in  Constan- 
tinople, the  Pantheon  in  Rome. 

200,  30.  That  catholic  dome  in  Bloomsbury:  .i.e.,  of  the  British 
Museum  Library. 

201,  12.  Clarissa:  Richardson's  principal  novel,  Clarissa  Har- 
lowe;  it  is  one  of  the  longest  of  long  novels. 

201,  25.  The  Athenaeum:  Thackeray's  favorite  club.  "]\Iy 
father's  club  was  so  much  a  part  of  his  daily  life  that  it  seemed  at 
last  to  be  a  part  of  his  home." — Mrs.  Thackeray  Ritchie,  Biographical 
Edition  of  Thackeray,  Vol.  XII. 

302,  18.  Lausdeo:  "Thank  God." 

De  Finibus 

(Title.)     De  Finibus:  "Concerning  Endings." 

203,  3.  When  Swift  was  in  love  with  Stella.  Swift's  Journal  to 
Stella,  Miss  Esther  Johnson,  written  while  he  was  in  London  and 
she  was  in  Ireland,  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  beautiful 
series  of  letters  in  the  language. 

203,  Q.  As  some  commentator  or  other  has  said.  The  commenta- 
tor is  Thackeray  himself,  in  his  admirable  lecture  on  Swift  in  the 
English  Humorists. 

203,  II.  Johnson  .  .  .  touching  the  posts.  "I  perceived  him 
at  a  good  distance  working  along  with  a  peculiar  solemnity  of 
deportment,  and  an  awkward  sort  of  measured  step.  Upon  every 
post  as  he  passed  along  he  deliberately  laid  his  hand;  but  missing 
one  of  them,  when  he  had  got  some  distance,  he  seemed  suddenly 
to  recollect  himself,  and  immediately  returning  carefully  performed 
the  accustomed  ceremony,  and  resumed  his  former  course,  not 
omitting  one  till  he  gained  the  crossing.  This,  Mr.  Sheridan  as- 
sured me,  was  his  constant  practice."  See  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson, 
Vol.  I,  485  (Hill's  Edition). 

203,  21.  Pendennis,  Olive  Newcome,  and  .  .  .  Philip  Firmin: 
principal  characters  in  Thackcraj^'s  novels,  Pendennis,  The  New- 
comes  and  The  Adventures  of  Philip.  The  Philip  had  just  been 
finished  when  he  was  writing  this  paper. 

203,  27.  Tamen  usque  recurro:  "Yet  I  come  back  again." 

204,  29.  Woolcomb  ...  or  Twysden:  characters  in  the 
Philip. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        369 

206,  4.  Dear  little  Weimar  town.  Thackeray  went  to  Weimar 
in  1831,  "for  study,  or  sport,  or  society,"  as  he  says.  He  always 
remembered  his  stay  there  with  pleasure.  In  a  charming  letter 
to  George  Henry  Lewes  (included  in  that  author's  Life  of  Goethe) 
he  says:  "  With  a  five  and  twenty  years'  experience  since  those  happy 
days  of  which  I  write,  and  an  acquaintance  with  an  immense 
variety  of  human  kind,  I  think  I  have  never  seen  a  society  more 
simple,  charitable,  courteous,  gentlemanlike,  than  that  of  the  dear 
little  Saxon  city  where  the  good  Schiller  and  the  great  Goethe  lived 
and  lie  buried." 

206,  5.  Charming  verses  which  are  prefixed  to  the  drama:  foar 
stanzas  prefixed  to  the  First  Part  of  Faust,  when  it  was  published 
in  1808;  most  of  this  First  Part  had  been  published  as  a  "  Fragment" 
as  early  as  1790,  and  some  scenes  had  certainly  been  written  much 
earlier  than  that.  Hence  the  tone  of  half  sad  reminiscence  in  the 
Knes.     The  third  stanza,  as  translated  by  Bayard  Taylor  runs  thus: 

"They  hear  no  longer  these  succeeding  measures, 
The  souls  to  whom  my  earliest  songs  I  sang: 
Dispersed  the  friendly  troop  with  all  its  pleasures, 
And  still,  alas!  the  echoes  first  that  rang! 
I  bring  the  unknown  multitude  my  treasures; 
Their  very  plaudits  give  my  heart  a  pang. 
And  those  beside,  whose  joy  my  Song  so  flattered, 
If  still  they  live,  wide  through  the  world  are  scattered." 

207,  4.  Lord  Palmerston  and  Mr.  Disraeli :  Henry  John  Temple, 

Viscount  Palmerston,  1 784-1865,  and  Benjamin  Disraeli,  1804- 
1881,  created  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  in  1876,  among  the  most  prom- 
inent English  statesmen  of  the  century.  Though  each — for  the 
greater  part  of  his  career — belonged  to  the  Tory  party,  their  public 
views  were  not  alwaj^s  in  agreement,  and  in  personal  taste  and 
temper  they  were  very  different. 

208,  28.  Jacob  Faithful:  a  novel  (1834)  by  Frederick  Marryat 
(1792-1848). 

208,  29.  Vingt  Ans  Apres:  Twenty  Years  After,  a  novel  (1845), 
by  Alexandre  Dumas,  the  elder  (1802-1870). 

208,  30.  Woman  in  White:  by  WiUiam  Wilkie  Collins  (1824- 
1889).     The  novel  appeared  in  i860. 

209,  2.  Chevalier  d'Artagnan:  one  of  the  principal  characters 
in  the  Vingt  Ans  Aprt's. 

209,  15.  a  la  mode  le  pays  de  Pole:  "After  the  custom  of  th» 
Pole,"  i.e.,  to  give  no  quarter. 


370        Biographical  Sketches   and  Notes 

209,  19.  Certain  Doctor  F and  a  certain   Mr.  T.  H : 

Doctor  Firmin  and  Thomas  Hunt,  characters  in  Philip. 

210,  18,  Dilectissimi  fratres :  "  Dearest  brethren." 

210,  20.  Miserere  nobis  miseris  peccatoribus :  "Have  mercy 
upon  us  miserable  sinners." 

210,  25.  Libera  me:  "deliver  me." 

210,  30.  Stop  in  his  story  and  begin  to  preach.  Thackeray 
certainly  does  often  stop  for  leisurely  chat  and  comment  with  his 
reader  upon  the  persons  of  his  story.  But  most  readers  will  pro- 
nounce these  passages  among  the  most  delightful  in  his  writing. 
Fielding  had  the  same  habit. 

210,  34.  Peccavi:  "I  have  sinned." 

212,  4.  Pythoness  on  her  oracle  tripod:  the  priestess  at  the 
oracle  of  Delphi,  who  sat  upon  a  tripod  placed  over  the  chasm 
whence  the  divine  afflatus  proceeded. 

213,  9.  Mignon,  and  Margaret  .  .  .  The  persons  named  in 
this  passage  are  among  the  immortal  characters  of  fiction.  Mignon 
is  one  of  the  principal  persons  in  Goethe's  Wilkelm  Meistcr;  Margaret 
is  the  heroine  in  his  Faitsl,  Goctz  von  Berlichingen  is  the  hero  of  his 
early  drama  of  that  name.  Diigald  Dalgdty,  from  A  Legend  of 
Montrose,  and  Ivanhoe,  of  course,  are  Walter  Scott's  creations. 
Uncas  is  the  prominent  character  in  Cooper's  Last  of  the  Mohicans, 
and  Leatherstocking  is  the  name  applied  to  Natty  Bumpo,  who 
figures  in  several  other  of  Cooper's  tales.  Athos,  Porthos,  and 
Aramis  are  the  Three  Musketeers  of  Alexandre  Dumas,  the  elder. 
Amelia  Booth  is  the  title  character  in  Fielding's  Amelia,  while 
Uncle  Toby  is  the  most  delightfully  whimsical  character  in  Sterne's 
Tristram  Shandy.  Tittlebat  Titmouse  is  a  character  in  the  once 
famous  novel,  Ten  Thousand  a  Year,  by  Samuel  Warren  (1807- 
1877).  Crummies  is  the  manager  of  a  very  cheap  theatrical  com- 
pany in  Dicken's  Nicholas  Nickleby.  Gil  Bias  de  Santillane  gives 
the  name  to  a  famous  French  Romance  by  Alain  Rene  Le  Sage 
(1668-1747).  Roger  de  Coverlcy  is  the  immortal  old  gentleman  of 
Addison's  Spectator;  and  "  the  greatest  of  all  crazy  gentlemen,  the 
Knight  of  La  Mancha"  is  the  Don  Quixote  of  Cervantes  (1547- 
1686),  who  "laughed  Spain's  chivalry  away." 

Queries  and  Suggestions 

Nil  nisi  Bonum. 

I.  Why  does  Thackeray  quote  at  the  beginning  of  this  paper  the 
words  of  Walter  Scott,  "Be  a  good  man,  my  dear?" 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        371 

2.  What  are  the  grounds  of  Thackeray's  esteem  and  admiration 
for  Irving?     Does  he  attempt  any  estimate  of  his  literary  work? 

3.  And  what  qualities  does  he  emphasize  most  in  his  tribute  to 
Macaulay? 

De  Fimbiis. 

I.  Show  by  reference  to  particular  passages  how  this  essay 
exhibits  Thackeray's  humor,  satire,  and  pathos. 

After  reading  carefully  both  these  essays, 

1.  Write  a  brief  paper  pointing  out  as  well  as  you  can  those 
peculiarities  of  Thackeray's  literary  style  that  give  it  such  ease 
and  familiarity — as,  for  example,  the  structure  and  length  of  his 
sentences,  the  nature  of  his  epithets  and  his  allusions,  his  use  of  the 
first-person  pronoun,  etc. 

2.  Give  in  a  brief  essay  the  estimate  you  have  formed  from  these 
essays  of  the  man,  Thackeray,— his  temperament,  virtues  he  most 
admired  in  others  and  exemplified  in  himself,  etc. 

3.  Addison,  Lamb,  and  Thackeray  are  three  great  English 
humorists;  can  you  point  out  any  similarities  in  their  character 
and  writing?     Any  striking  differences? 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  the  poet-philosopher  of  New  England, 
was  born  in  Boston,  May  25,  1803.  He  inherited  some  of  the  best 
blood  and  brains  of  America,  for  his  paternal  grandfathers  for  four 
generations  had  been  Puritan  ministers,  and  most  of  his  immediate 
maternal  ancestry  was  of  the  same  stock.  He  was  himself  intended 
for  the  clerical  profession.  After  graduation  from  Harvard  in  18  21, 
and  a  year  or  so  of  not  very  congenial  experience  as  a  school-teacher, 
he  began  his  studies  in  divinity,  and  1826  was  "approbated  to 
preach"  by  the  Middlesex  Association  of  Ministers.  He  spent  a 
winter  in  the  South  for  his  health — at  that  period  of  his  life  pre- 
carious— and  after  preaching  occasionally  in  various  places  for 
another  year,  was  appointed,  in  1829,  as  colleague  with  Rev.  Henry 
Ware,  to  the  pastorate  of  the  Second  Church,  Boston.  He  held 
this  position  three  years,  when  differences  between  himself  and  the 
membership  of  his  church  as  to  some  of  the  forms  of  worship  and 
especially  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  led  to  his  resignation. 
He  continued  to  preach  frequently  for  the  next  three  or  four  years, 
but  he  never  accepted  another  parish.  In  truth,  his  differences 
with  the  accepted  orthodoxy  went  much  deeper  than  any  mere 
questions  of  ritual;  he  felt  that  he  ought  to  withdraw  from  the  for- 


372        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

mal  work  and  office  of  the  ministry.  Yet  he  had  by  no  means 
ceased  to  be  a  preacher;  he  craved  some  place  for  freer  utterance 
than  could  be  offered  by  any  pulpit.  This  he  found  in  the  New- 
England  lyceum  lecture  system,  then  in  its  early  vigor.  From 
that  time  for  more  than  thirty  years  he  was  a  familiar  figure  before 
audiences,  not  only  in  New  England  but,  as  his  reputation  extended, 
throughout  the  middle  West.  Most  of  the  teaching  afterwards  to 
be  embodied  in  his  Essays  was  first  given  to  the  public  from  the 
lecture  platform.     But  up  to  1835  he  had  published  nothing. 

The  decade  1830-1840  was  in  New  England  a  period  of  the 
ferment  of  thought  on  almost  all  subjects.  The  influence  of  a  new 
philosophy,  mostly  derived  from  Germany  through  Coleridge  and 
Carlyle,  was  making  itself  felt  upon  young  thinking  men.  The 
older  logical  theology  was  to  be  widened  to  make  room  for  intuition 
and  emotion.  All  sorts  of  vague  ideas  upon  social  reform  were  in 
the  air,  some  practical,  some  visionary.  It  was  in  the  autumn  of 
1836  that  Mr.  Emerson  and  three  other  thoughtful  young  men  met 
in  Boston  to  talk  over  the  state  of  current  opinion  on  philosophy  and 
religion.  The  meeting  resulted  in  the  informal  association  of  some 
dozen  men  and  women — George  Ripley,  Bronson  Alcott,  Henry 
Thoreau,  James  Freeman  Clarke,  Margaret  Fuller,  Elizabeth 
Peabody,  and  some  others — who  met  occasionally  during  the  next 
six  or  eight  years,  for  the  discussion  of  such  themes.  They  came  to 
be  called  the  Transcendental  Club — though  they  never  accepted 
that  title — and  much  of  the  teaching  on  philosophical  and  social 
matters  in  the  next  quarter  centur}'  really  had  its  rise  in  the  writing 
and  discussions  of  this  group  of  thinkers.  But  it  was  Emerson  who 
in  the  last  half  of  this  decade,  first  gave  striking  pubhc  expression  to 
the  most  important  of  the  new  ideas.  In  1836  he  published  an 
epoch-marking  little  book,  Nature,  which,  though  often  rising  to 
the  tone  of  poetry,  is  the  first  pronounced  utterance  of  the  new 
idealism,  with  its  recognition  of  the  claims  of  sentiment  and  emotion. 
Next  year,  1837,  he  delivered  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of 
Harvard  College  an  Address  on  The  American  Scholar,  which 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  has  characterized  as  our  intellectual  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  It  was  a  plea  for  independent  thinking,  for 
freedom  of  individual  belief  and  action.  Finally,  in  July  of  1838, 
he  gave  an  address  before  the  Senior  class  of  the  Cambridge  Divinity 
School  in  which  he  claimed  for  himself  and  urged  upon  his  hearers 
the  widest  libertj'  of  individual  belief  as  a  necessary  condition  of 
genuine  religious  life.  He  frankly  abandoned  most  of  the  facts  of 
historical  Christianity,  and  flung  himself  upon  the  primary  spiritual 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        373 

intuitions.  The  address  went  beyond  the  teaching  even  of  the 
liberal  school  where  it  was  delivered,  and  caused  immediate  and 
eager  controversy. 

These  utterances  pla,ced  Emerson  at  the  front  of  what  was 
vaguely  called  the  Transcendental  movement.  He  had,  however,  no 
desire  to  lead  any  "  movement,"  or  to  write  a  credo  for  any  one  else. 
As  he  said,  later  in  life,  the  one  subject  he  had  always  preached 
was  "the  competence  of  the  individual  man."  He  distrusted  all 
organization,  all  attempts  to  bind  men  to  associated  or  uniform 
action.  He  joined  no  party,  was  chary  of  espousing  any  "cause." 
All  his  life  long,  in  lectures  and  essays,  he  went  on  teaching  large 
primary  truths  which  the  individual  must  apply  to  his  own  conduct 
as  best  he  can. 

Emerson's  outward  life  had  no  dramatic  phases.  For  many 
years  he  usually  made  a  lecture  tour  every  winter,  and  the  returns 
from  these  lectures  furnished  the  greater  part  of  the  income  his 
frugal  life  demanded.  The  first  series  of  the  Essays — largely  made 
out  of  the  materials  used  as  lectures — appeared  in  184 1,  the  second 
in  1844;  other  volumes  in  prose  and  verse,  at  intervals  of  about 
five  years  imtil  1875.  In  1834  he  had  taken  up  his  residence  in 
Concord,  at  first  in  his  grandfather's  "Old  Manse" — later  made 
memorable  by  Hawthorne — but  after  a  few  months,  in  the  house 
just  outside  the  village,  where  he  passed  the  rest  of  his  days.  It  is 
impossible  to  conceive  a  better  example  of  plain  living  and  high 
thinking  than  his  life  here  for  forty  years.  He  was  no  ascetic. 
To  his  neighbors  he  was  a  plain  citizen,  kindly  of  speech,  who  dug 
in  his  garden  and  always  attended  town-meeting.  But  he  had 
always  the  serene  dignity  of  one  who  knows  habitually  the  joy  of 
elevated  thought.  Hawthorne,  who  lived  hard  by,  once  said,  "It 
was  good  to  meet  him  in  the  wood-path  or  sometimes  in  our  avenue, 
with  that  pure  intellectual  gleam  diffusing  about  his  person  like  the 
garmen*"  of  a  shining  one."  As  years  went  by,  he  came  to  be  re- 
garded with  a  kind  of  reverence;  for  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  he 
was  the  most  venerable  figure  among  American  writers.  He  died, 
April  27,  1882. 

Matthew  Arnold  pronounced  Emerson's  Essays  "the  most 
important  work  done  in  prose  in  the  nineteenth  century."  To  us 
of  this  more  practical  generation  this  estimate  may  seem  extrava- 
gant. If  we  look  for  philosophical  teaching,  we  are  likely  to  find 
Emerson's  work  obscure  or  mystical.  He  seems  to  mix  soul  and 
sense  a  good  deal,  and  confuses  himself  with  the  universe  in  a  way 
difiicult  to  understand.     The  truth  is,  that  while  Emerson's  work  is 


374        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

pervaded  with  a  profound  spiritual  philosophy,  he  is  not  in  strict 
ness  to  be  called  a  philosophical  writer.  He  was  not  a  consecutive- 
thinker;  he  seldom  follows  out  a  train  of  thought.  His  mind  did 
not  work  that  way.  He  perceived  truths  directly,  one  by  one;  he 
did  not  reach  them  by  a  process  of  reasoning.  He  always  preached 
openness  of  mind,  and  never  cared  much  whether  the  truth  of  to- 
day squared  with  that  of  yesterday.  Such  a  man  will  frame  no 
sj'stem  of  philosophy,  and  it  may  prove  difficult  to  decide  what  are 
the  constant  elements  in  his  teaching. 

Yet  it  is,  in  great  part,  just  this  temper  of  the  seer  rather  than  of 
the  philosopher  that  explains  Emerson's  power.  We  wonder  some- 
times how  this  plain  man  on  the  lecture  platform,  reading  his  manu- 
script with  none  of  the  arts  of  the  orator,  could  hold  his  audiences 
in  rapt  attention.  A  close  linked  train  of  argument  they  never 
would  have  followed  for  an  hour.  But  one  large  truth  after  another 
rose  before  them,  clad  in  homely  or  striking  phrase,  and  they  did  not 
stay  to  connect  or  relate  them.  At  the  end,  if  they  had  received  no 
clear  teaching,  they  had  been  stimulated  and  enlarged.  As  Lowell 
says,  in  describing  the  early  lectures:  "Did  they  say  he  was  un- 
connected? So  are  the  stars.  If  asked  what  was  left,  what  we 
carried  home,  we  should  not  have  been  careful  for  an  answer.  It 
would  have  been  enough  if  we  had  said  that  something  beautiful 
had  passed  that  way."  Now  something  of  the  same  effect  is  felt 
by  the  reader  of  one  of  Emerson's  great  philosophic  essays,  like 
The  Over  Soul.  The  high  truths  it  contains  cannot  be  confined  in 
clear  speech  or  fitted  neatly  into  a  system;  it  is  enough  that  they 
expand  our  minds,  quicken  our  reverence,  and  make  us  "feel  that 
we  are  greater  than  we  know." 

But  most  of  Emerson's  essays  do  not  move  in  this  high  region  of 
speculation.  He  himself  had  little  care  for  abstract  thinking 
detached  from  practice.  His  philosophy  was  balanced  by  a  massive 
common-sense.  He  was  a  transcendentalist,  but  a  Yankee  trans- 
cendentalist.  He  had  the  shrewd  practical  wisdom,  the  cool  self- 
possession,  the  touch  of  rusticity — all  the  qualities  that  make  up 
the  typical  Yankee.  It  was  this  side  of  his  character,  doubtless, 
that  helped  his  popularity  as  a  lecturer  with  plain  folk  who  cared 
nothing  about  transcendentalism.  This  man  evidently,  whatever 
his  philosophj%  was  a  man  of  sense.  He  knew  the  difference  be- 
tween good  work  and  poor.  He  knew  how  to  make  a  little  money 
and  keep  it.  He  didn't  live  in  the  clouds;  he  lived  in  a  two-story 
white  house  with  green  blinds,  on  Concord  Street,  and  he  had 
bought  and  i)aid  for  it.     .\nd  it  is  just  this  balance  of  qualities  that 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        375 

makes  Emerson's  essays  of  such  permanent  and  universal  value. 
Most  of  them  are  concerned  with  the  general  truths  of  practical 
life.  Their  very  titles  indicate  that — Success,  Culture,  Wealth, 
Prudence,  Manners,  Fanning,  Works  and  Days,  Domestic  Life. 
Emerson  gave  to  a  volume  in  which  he  collected  some  of  the  best  of 
his  papers  the  title,  The  Conduct  of  Life;  it  is  really  the  theme  of  all 
his  work — to  set  forth  those  truths  that  enlarge,  and  refine,  and 
liberahze  ordinary  life. 

Of  course  even  the  tyro  can  criticize  the  manner  of  the  Essays. 
It  is  easy  to  point  out  that  they  lack  method  and  consecutiveness. 
Successive  paragraphs  sometimes  have  little  obvious  connection, 
and  each  paragraph  falls  apart  into  separate  unrelated  sentences. 
Emerson  knew  that.  He  once  said  of  liis  sentences  that  each  one 
was  "an  infinitely  repellent  particle."  But,  as  a  compensation, 
these  single  sentences  are  often  marvels  of  terse  and  pithy  wisdom. 
To  fit  them  together  with  joints  and  connections  would  injure  the 
rounded  perfection  of  each.  If  you  will  have  his  style  flowing  and 
"sequacious,"  you  must  lose  something  of  its  epigrammatic  vigor. 
Emerson's  sentences  are  strong  enough  to  stand  alone.  They  have 
positiveness  and  finality.  He  needs  none  of  the  hesitating  phrases 
with  which  we  timidly  condition  our  utterances;  his  truths  are  round 
and  certain,  as  if  indeed  they  had 

"Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled." 

Moreover,  the  alleged  lack  of  method  in  the  essays  is  often  rather 
apparent  than  real.  Careful  and  sympathetic  reading  usually 
shows — as  in  the  essay  on  Manners  included  in  this  volume — a  unity 
ot  theme,  an  order  and  advance  of  thought,  rising  to  an  impressive 
climax  at  the  end. 

But,  after  all,  the  virtue  of  any  book  depends  not  upon  any  rhe- 
torical skill,  but  upon  the  personality  of  the  man  revealed  in  it. 
And  seldom  has  a  man  put  himself  more  wholly  into  his  work  than 
Emerson.  His  authentic  voice  speaks  from  every  page.  It  is  the 
voice  of  a  man  calm,  optimistic,  as  having  sight  of  the  highest 
truths,  yet  full  of  the  wisdom  of  common  life,  and  urging  upon  us  all, 
with  such  pithy  originality  of  phrase  and  such  homely  vividness  of 
imagination  as  none  of  his  contemporaries  could  command,  the 
virtues  of  sincerity,  courage,  self-reliance,  independence. 

Manners 

"A  lecture  with  this  name  had  been  given  by  Mr.  Emerson  in 
the  Boston  course  on  'The  Philosophy  of  History'  in  the  winter  of 


376        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

1836-37.  This  essay  is  the  lecture  in  the  course  on  'The  Times, 
given  at  Tremont  Temple  in  the  winter  of  1841-42.  A  year  later, 
and  before  this  essay  was  published,  Mr.  Emerson  gave  in  New 
York  five  lectures  on  'New  England,'  the  third  of  which  treated  of 
'Manners  and  Customs  of  New  England.'" — Note  in  the  "Cen- 
tenary Edition,"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  315. 

Some  paragraphs  in  the  essay  closely  resemble  passages  in  the 
essays  Prudence  and  Aristocracy;  it  is  probable  that  the  same  pas- 
sages in  Mr.  Emerson's  Note  Books  may  have  furnished  material 
for  all  three  essays. 

215,  2.  Feejee  (or  Fiji)  islanders:  inhabitants  of  a  group  of 
islands  in  the  South  Pacific,  now  a  dependency  of  Great  Britain. 
Previous  to  their  conversion  to  Christianity  by  Wesleyan  mission- 
aries, they  were  notorious  cannibals;  at  present  they  are  civilized, 
educated,  and  have  some  commerce. 

216,  3.  Belzoni:  Giovanni  Battista  Belzoni  (1778-1823),  cele- 
brated Italian  traveler  and  archaeologist.  His  principal  work  is 
A  Narrative  of  Excavations  in  Egypt  and  Nubia. 

216,  6.  Borgoo:  Borgu,  or  Bussanga,  a  state  in  West  Central 
Africa,  near  the  head  waters  of  the  Niger. 

216,  10.  Bomoos:  inhabitants  of  Bornu,  a  state  in  the  Sudan, 
Africa. 

216,  31.  Sir  Philip  Sidney  (1554-1586),  English  poet,  romancer, 
courtier,  soldier — the  pattern  gentleman  of  his  age. 

217,  29.  Gentilesse.  It  is  unfortunate  that  this  word  is  obso- 
lete. It  is  a  favorite  word  with  Chaucer;  a  familiar  definition  of 
gentilesse  in  his  Wif  of  Bathes  Talc  was  included  by  Emerson  in  his 
volume  of  poetic  selections,  Parnassus: 

"Loke  who  that  is  most  vertuous  alway, 
Privee  and  apart,  and  most  entendeth  ay 
To  do  the  gentil  dedes  that  he  can. 
And  tak  him  for  the  grettest  gentil  man. 
Crist  wol  we  clayme  of  him  our  gentillesse, 
Not  of  our  cldres  for  hir  old  richesse." 

219,  8.  Battle  of  Lundy's  Lane.  One  of  the  battles  in  the  War  of 
1812-14  between  England  and  America,  fought  July  15,  1814.  The 
force  of  Emerson's  simile  is  not  evident  to  me. 

219,  16.  LordFalkland:  Lucius  Cary,  viscount  Falkland  (1610?- 
1643),  one  of  the  most  scholarly  and  thoughtful  noblemen  of  the 
early  seventeenth  century.  He  was  a  friend  of  constitutional 
liberty,  but  when  the  Civil  War  broke  out,  joined  the  army  of  the 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        377 

crown  and  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  Newbury.     It  was  in  memory 
of  Falkland  that  Ben  Jonson  wrote  the  beautiful  lines  beginning 

"It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree 
In  bulk,  doth  make  man  better  be." 

See  also  one  of  Matthew  Arnold's  best  essays,  Falkland. 

219,  30.  Saladin  (1137-1193):  a  powerful  sultan  of  Egypt  and 
Syria,  the  principal  foe  of  the  Crusaders  in  their  efforts  to  capture 
Jerusalem.  He  is  a  principal  figure  in  Walter  Scott's  Talisman. 
Sapor:  Sapor  II.,  surnamed  "the  Great,"  king  of  Persia  in  the 
fourth  century.  He  greatly  extended  the  bounds  of  Persia,  and 
successfully  defended  himself  against  invasion  by  the  Romans  under 
the  emporor  Jovian.  The  Cid  (about  1040-1099):  Ruy,  or  Rod- 
rigo,  Diaz  de  Rivar,  surnamed  The  Cid,  and  someitmes  El  Campea- 
dor  (the  Challenger).  A  national  hero  of  Spain  in  the  struggle 
against  the  Moors.  The  story  of  his  exploits  was  put  into  a  roman- 
tic Chronicle,  within  half  a  century  after  his  death.  This  Chronicle 
with  other  portions  of  the  Cid  romance  was  translated  and  combined 
by  Robert  Southey  into  his  romantic  poem  The  Chronicle  of  the  Cid. 
Mr.  Emerson  is  said  to  have  often  read  passages  from  Southey's 
poem  to  his  children.  Scipio:  Publius  Cornelius  Scipio,  siu"named 
Africanus  Major  (about  257-183  B.  C),  the  greatest  Roman  general 
before  Julius  Caesar.  He  finally  defeated  the  Carthaginians  in  the 
great  battle  of  Zama.  Alexander  (356-323  B.  C),  surnamed  The 
Great:  son  of  Phihp  of  Macedon,  and  conqueror  of  a  large  part  of 
the  known  world  of  his  day.  Pericles  (about  495-429  B  .C); 
famous  Athenian  statesman  and  orator. 

220,  12.  Diogenes:  Greek  cynic  philosopher  (about  412-323 
B.  C.)  who  according  to  tradition,  lived  in  a  tub;  Socrates :  greatest 
of  Greek  philosophers  (474-399  B.  C);  Epaminondas  (418-362 
B.  C):  famous  Theban  statesman,  orator,  and  general 

220,  16.  Are  my  contemporaries.  Mr.  Edward  Cabot  Emerson, 
in  the  Notes  to  the  Centenary  Edition  of  the  Works  (Vol.  Til,  p. 
318)  suggests  that  Emerson's  friend  Thoreau  combined  in  himself 
something  of  the  philosophy  of  Diogenes,  the  dialectic  of  Socrates, 
and  the  heroic  temper  of  Epaminondas. 

221,  6.  Energize.  This  intransitive  use  of  the  word  is  not  com- 
mon. 

221,  23.  Faubourg  St.  Germain:  the  aristocratic  section  of 
Paris. 

222,  7.  Mexico :  the  scene  of  the  most  brilliant  conquests  of 
Curtiz,  the  greatest  Spanish  adventurer  of  the  sixteenth  century; 


378        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Marengo,  one  of  Napoleon  s  most  famous  victories,  June  14,  1808, 
over  the  Austrians;  Trafalgar,  perhaps  the  greatest  victory  in 
English  naval  history,  won  by  Nelson  over  a  French  and  Spanish 
fleet,  October  21,  1805.  Nelson  was  shot,  and  died  in  the  moment 
of  victory. 

222,  26.  If  .  .  .  two  men  only  were  left,  etc.  Some  social 
reformers  in  these  days  seem  inclined  to  forget  this  truth.  The 
ideal  of  social  reform  is  the  equalization  of  opportunity,  not  of 
position. 

223,  34.  Send  them  ...  to  Coventry:  to  ostracize,  exclude 
from  society.  The  phrase  was  originally  a  military  one,  signifying 
to  exclude  from  the  company  mess.  "This  use  of  the  name  Coven- 
try is  a  matter  of  conjecture." — Century  Dictionary. 

224,  26.  Composure,  and  self -content.  This  virtue  of  calm  self- 
reliance  is  the  one  on  which  Emerson  is  always  insisting,  and  he 
exemplified  it  himself  in  most  remarkable  degree.  Nothing  in  all 
his  work  is  more  charcateristic  than  the  essay  on  Self-Reliance. 

225,  I.  He  is  an  underling:  i.e.,  the  man  who  defers  to  ".some 
eminent  person." 

225,  9.  Vich  Ian  Vohr  with  his  tail  on!  In  Scott's  Waverley, 
Chapter  xvi,  Evan  the  follower  of  Mclvor,  says  to  the  young 
Englishman,  Edward,  ''Ah,  if  you  Saxon  Duinhe-wassel  (English 
gentlemen)  saw  but  the  Chief  with  his  tail  on!" 

226,  6.  Amphitryon:  in  Greek  mj'th  the  husband  of  Alcmene. 
The  use  of  the  name  for  a  host,  as  here,  arises  from  at  incident  in 
the  myth,  especially  as  it  is  expanded  by  the  French  dramatist 
Moliere  in  his  play  based  upon  the  Greek  story.  Jupiter  gives  a 
feast  to  Alcmene,  in  the  absence  of  her  husband,  disguising  himself 
as  Amphitryon,  when  the  real  Amphitryon  suddenly  appears,  and 
a  dispute  arises  as  to  which  is  the  real  host.  The  line  of  Moliere 
in  which  it  is  decided  is  often  quoted:  "Le  vJfritable  .A.mphitrj-on 
est  I'Amphitryon  oii  Ton  dine."  "The  real  Amphitryon  is  the 
Amphitryon  where  one  dines" — or,  "that  gives  the  feast." 

226,  14.  Tuileries:  the  royal  palace  of  the  kings  of  France, 
begun  before  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  brought  to 
completion  by  Louis  Fourteenth  near  the  close  of  the  seventeenth. 
It  was  burned  to  the  ground  by  the  Paris  commune,  in  1871. 

226,  14.  Escurial:  a  mass  of  building  some  thirty  miles  north 
of  Madrid,  .Spain,  containing  a  monastery,  and  the  palace,  chapel, 
and  mausoleum  of  the  kings  of  Spain. 

226,  30.  Voice  of  the  Lord  in  the  garden.     See  Genesis,  in,  8. 

327,  4.  Madame    de    Stael:  Anne    Loise    Germaine    Necker, 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        379 

Baroness  de  Stael  (1766-1817),  an  illustrious  French  writer,  only 
child  of  the  financier  Necker.  She  early  encountered  the  personal 
enmity  of  Napoleon,  and  when  her  most  famous  book,  De  VAlle- 
magne  (Germany)  appeared,  in  1810,  Napoleon  ordered  the  ten 
thousand  copies  of  the  first  Paris  edition  to  be  destroyed. 

227,  13.  Montaigne  (1533-92):  Michel  Eyqiicm  de  Montaigne. 
The  most  famous  of  French  essayists,  who  may  almost  be  said  to 
Tiave  originated  the  personal  essay  as  a  distinct  literary  form.  His 
Essais  have  been  frequent)}'  translated;  the  translation  to  which 
Emerson  refers,  including  the  "Travels,"  was  pubhshed  in  1842  by 
William  Hazlitt,  Jr.  son  of  the  essayist. 

229,  23.  What  belongs  to  coming  together.  Notice  this  e.xact 
definition  of  a  word  by  its  etymology.  The  definition  of  fashion 
which  follows  is  an  excellent  example  of  Emerson's  gift  of  summing 
up  a  paragraph  in  a  sentence. 

230,  3.  The  dry  light:  -i.e.,  the  clear  intellectual  perception 
unmodified  by  passion  or  prejudice. 

231,  6.  Fox:  Charles  James  Fox  (i 749-1806),  an  eminent 
Liberal  statesman  and  brilliant  debater.  During  the  earlier  portion 
of  his  career,  Fox  had  been  in  political  sympathy  and  warm  personal 
friendship  with  his  great  contemporary  Edmund  Burke;  but 
Burke's  attitude  toward  the  French  Revolutioi  alienated  them. 
The  famous  scene  to  which  Emerson  refers  occurred  in  a  debate 
on  the  Canada  bill.  May  6,  1791,  when  Burke,  exasperated  at  what 
he  thought  the  harshness  and  injustice  of  his  friend,  cried  out 
''I  have  done  my  duty  at  the  price  of  my  friend.  Our  friendship 
is  at  an  end!" 

231,  17.  Sheridan:  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  (1751-1816),  a 
Whig  politician,  almost  equall}'  eminent  as  an  orator  and  a  dram- 
atist and  a  wit.  Both  Fox  and  Sheridan  were  inveterate  gamesters; 
the  "debt  of  honor"  had  been  contracted  at  the  gaming  table. 

232,  22.  Circe,  to  her  homed  company.  Circe  is  represented  in 
the  Odyssey  (Book  .x.)  as  dwelling  in  a  pleasant  valley,  and  sur- 
rounded by  lions  and  wolves  that  are  tame  and  obedient.  It  is  not 
clear  where  Emerson  finds  any  mention  of  a  "horned"  company 
about  her. 

232,  26.  Captain  Sjonmes,  from  the  interior  of  the  earth.  John 
Cleves  Symmes,  a  captain  in  the  United  States  army,  conceived  the 
strange  theory  that  the  earth  was  hollow,  and  consisted  of  six  or 
seven  concentric  spheres,  open  at  the  north  pole,  where  entrance 
to  them  might  be  had.  Hence  the  north  pole  came  to  be  known  as 
"Symmes's  hole."     He  published  his  theory  in  1826. 


380        Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

232,  30.  Torre  del  Greco:  a  town  near  Naples,  at  the  foot  of 
Vesuvius. 

233,  27.  Here  lies  Sir  Jenkin  Grout.  This  epitaph  has  never 
been  found,  and  may  have  been  an  invention  of  Emerson. 

234,  3.  Some  friend  of  Poland;  some  Philhellene.  The  break- 
ing up  of  the  kingdom  of  Poland  and  its  forcible  partition  between 
Russia,  Prussia,  and  Austria,  in  the  last  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  caused  a  good  deal  of  indignation  among  friends  of  political 
liberty.  The  term  Philhellene  was  applied  to  those  who  assisted 
the  Greeks  in  their  struggle  with  the  Turks  for  independence. 

234,  25.  As  heaven  and  earth  are  fairer  far,  etc.  See  Keats, 
Hyperion,  Book  ii,  lines  206-215,  228-229. 

236,  19.  Robin  Hood:  the  legendary  popular  hero  of  the  ballads 
that  originated  in  England  during  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  and  that  represent  the  temper  of  popular  resistance  to  the 
exactions  of  the  nobility  and  cloistered  clergy. 

236,  T,:}.  In  behalf  of  Women's  Rights.  ISIr.  Emerson  was  always 
in  favor  of  granting  ccjual  civil  and  political  rights  to  women  wher- 
ever they  deliberately  claim  them;  he  trusted  the  sense  and  judg- 
ment of  woman  to  determine  what  she  needed.  His  views  on  the 
question  may  be  seen  in  an  Address  before  the  Woman's  Rights 
Convention,  in  Boston,  Sept.  20,  1855. 

237,  10.  The  place  of  muses  and  of  Delphic  Sibyls.  It  was  of 
this  paragraph  that  Oliver  Wendell  Plolmes  said:  "Emerson  speaks 
of  woman  in  language  that  seems  to  pant  for  rhythm  and  rime." 

237,  21.  Hafiz  or  Firdousi:  Shams  ed-Din  Muhammad,  sur- 
named  Hafiz,  the  greatest  of  Persian  poets,  who  wrote  in  the  four- 
teenth century.  Abul  Kasim  ISIansur,  surnamed  Firdusi  or 
Eirdausi  (Paradise)  an  epic  Persian  poet  of  the  tenth  century,  whose 
great  poem  the  Shahnamah  tells  the  story  of  Persian  kings  and  heroes 
from  the  earliest  time  to  the  seventh  century.  He  has  been  called 
the  Homer  of  Persia. 

Emerson  had  no  knowledge  of  the  oriental  languages,  but  he  was 
attracted  to  eastern  poetry  chiefly  by  its  tone  of  mysticism. 

238,  9.  Byzantine.  This  epithet,  usually  applied  to  a  certain 
school  of  architecture,  is  here  probably  intended  by  Emerson  to 
characterize  "chivalry  or  fashion"  as  irregular,  capricious,  e.xtrav- 
agant. 

239,  22.  The  king  of  Shiraz  ...  the  poor  Osman.  Shiraz 
was  one  of  the  ca[)itals  of  Persia,  the  residence  of  Haliz.  "Osman 
was  the  name  given  by  Emerson  to  the  ideal  man,  subject  to  the 
same  conditions  as  himself" — note  in  Centenary  Edition,  III,  322. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes        381 

239>  25.  Koran :  the  sacred  book  of  Mohammedans,  the  contents 
of  which,  it  is  claimed,  were  directly  revealed  to  Mohammed. 

240,  7.  I  overheard  Jove,  one  day.  This  fable,  which  closes 
the  essay,  is  of  Emerson's  own  invention. 

Queries  and  Suggestions 

1.  After  reading  carefully  this  essay,  set  down  as  clearly  as  you 
can  but  without  special  care  as  to  their  arrangement,  as  many  as 
you  can  remember  of  the  particular  truths  taught  in  the  essay. 

2.  Then,  with  the  text  before  you,  make  out  an  analysis  of  the 
argument  of  the  whole  essay. 

3.  Show  by  an  examination  of  several  paragraphs  that  we  usually 
find  in  Emerson's  writing  unity  in  the  paragraph,  but  lack  of  clear 
connection  between  the  consecutive  sentences. 

4.  Select  from  the  essay  as  many  as  ten  brief,  pithy  sentences, 
each  expressing  some  important  truth  in  striking  manner,  and  com- 
mit them  to  memory. 

5.  Explain  in  your  own  way  what  Emerson  means  by  "Power" 
(p.  218). 

6.  Interpret,  consistently  with  its  context,  this  sentence:  "The 
intellect  relies  on  memory  to  make  some  supplies  to  face  these 
2xtemporaneous  squadrons."     (p.  219.) 

7.  What,  according  to  Emerson,  is  the  relation  between  Power, 
Manners,  and  Fashion? 

8.  What  does  he  mean  by  the  statement:  "Fashion  ...  is 
virtue  gone  to  seed."     (p.  221.) 

9.  Emerson  says  (p.  223)  and  repeats  and  illustrates  the  state- 
ment in  the  following  paragraphs,  that  "Fashion  rests  on  reality, 
and  hates  nothing  so  much  as  pretenders";  how  far  do  you  think 
this  true?  And  do  you  find  any  statements  later  in  the  essay  that 
seem  inconsistent  with  it? 

10.  Explain  what  Emerson  means  by  "deference."     (p.  227.) 

11.  Another  requisite  of  Manners  is  "a  certain  degree  of  taste" 
(p.  229);  how  would  you  define  "Taste  "? 

12.  Fashion  is  again  defined  (p.  234)  as  "an  attempt  to  organize 
beauty  of  behavior."  Is  this  definition  consistent  with  that  given 
above,  in  query  8? 

13.  Yet,  says  Emerson  (p.  235),  "elegance  comes  of  no  breeding 
but  of  birth,"  and  declares  in  the  same  paragraph  that  Shakespeare 
is  "the  best-bred  man  in  England  in  all  Christendom";  what  does 
he  mean  by  that? 


382         Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

14.  What  do  you  infer  from  the  paragraph  (pp.  236-37)  that 
Emerson  would  say  of  the  later  movements  "in  behalf  of  Women's 
Rights"? 

15.  After  all,  what  seems  to  be  the  teaching  of  Emerson  in  the 
last  two  paragraphs  of  the  essay  as  to  the  relative  value  of  "every- 
thing that  is  called  fashion  and  courtesy"? 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 

In  versatility  and  breadth  of  culture  no  American  man  of  letters 
has  surpassed  James  Russell  Lowell.  Journalist,  editor,  reformer, 
literary  critic,  poet,  university  professor,  politician,  diplomat  —he 
played  many  parts  and  played  them  all  well.  If  he  just  missed  of 
the  highest  eminence  in  any,  he  failed  in  none.  His  breadth  of  at- 
tainment was  not  gained  at  the  expense  of  efficiency. 

James  Russell  Lowell  was  born  February  22,  18 19.  Like  Emerson 
he  was  of  the  Brahmin  caste  of  New  England,  for  his  father.  Rev. 
Charles  Lowell,  was  a  New  England  parson  of  the  best  type.  In 
his  early  years,  Charles  Lowell,  after  graduation  from  Harvard, 
had  seen  something  of  the  great  world,  studied  in  Edinburgh, 
met  Wilberforce  in  London,  heard  Pitt  and  Fox  and  Sheridan  in 
Parliament,  and  then  came  home  to  be  minister  of  the  West  Church 
in  Boston,  and  to  live  on  that  goodly  homestead  of  Elmwood  where 
his  greater  son  was  to  spend  all  his  days.  In  the  Elmwood  house 
there  was  a  library  of  some  four  thousand  volumes,  by  no  means 
all  theological;  and  when  we  get  our  first  glimpse  of  James  Russell 
Lowell  he  is  reading  there  with  his  sister  Mary.  That  is  the  most 
noteworthy  thing  in  his  life  for  the  next  twenty  years — he  is  always 
reading,  and  reading  the  great  books.  In  college  he  permitted 
himself  some  neglect  of  required  tasks;  but  he  revels  in  Milton  and 
Cowley,  he  has  read  all  Shakespeare,  and  is  making  eager  accjuaint- 
ance  with  Chaucer  and  the  old  dramatists.  Within  two  or  three 
years  after  graduation  he  is  familiar  not  only  with  a  wide  range  of 
English  literature,  but  with  the  best  things  in  the  Greek  poets  and 
dramatists.  He  is  laying  the  foundations  of  a  broad  human  cul- 
ture. One  other  life-long  characteristic  of  the  man  is  evident  in 
the  boy,  a  healthy  humor,  a  certain  exuberance  of  spirits  which  kept 
him  from  pedantry  or  priggishness.  So  much  reading  meant 
writing.  After  graduation,  in  183S,  he  read  law — though  rather 
unwillingly — and  was  actually  admitted  to  the  bar,  but  it  is  not  on 
record  that  he  had  any  clients;  he  had  always  an  inclination  to  live 
by  literature,  and  by  1840  seems  to  have  decided  that  to  be  his 
oa'y  vocation. 


Biographical  Sketclies  and  Notes        383 

Perhaps  this  decision  was  confirmed  by  a  friendship  Lowell 
formed  in  the  autumn  of  1839.  Maria  White,  the  daughter  of  a 
farmer  in  Watertown,  ]\Iass.,  was  a  girl  of  singular  depth,  sensitive- 
ness, and  serenity  of  character.  She  had  been  touched  by  the  in- 
fluence of  Emerson,  and  though  quite  without  any  mannish  desire 
for  publicity,  she  shared  the  new  interest  in  matters  social  and 
intellectual  so  prevalent  in  New  England  just  then.  Lowell  saw 
her  often  with  a  group  of  young  people  who  met  for  simple  forms  of 
social  recreation,  with  music,  readings,  and  discussion,  more  or  less 
transcendental,  of  all  things.  They  were  engaged  by  the  middle  of 
1840.  The  first  result  of  the  engagement  was  a  thin  volume  of 
poems,  A  Year's  Life,  of  which  Maria  White  is  the  inspiration  and 
the  only  theme.  Three  years  later,  1844,  Lowell  issued  another 
volume  of  Poems  with  a  somewhat  wider  range  of  interest.  Yet  in 
this  volume,  too,  the  most  noteworthy  thing  is  that  enthusiasm  for 
ethical  and  social  ideals  which  Maria  White  had  done  so  much  to 
quicken. 

Meantime  he  seemed  settling  into  the  career  of  a  journalist.  In 
1842  he  contributed  to  the  Boston  Miscellany  a  series  of  papers  that 
two  years  later  were  collected  and  published  under  the  title  Conver- 
sations on  Some  of  the  Old  Poets.  In  the  same  year,  1842,  he  pro- 
jected a  new  literary  journal  to  be  called  The  Pioneer;  it  enlisted  the 
services  of  a  very  brilliant  corps  of  young  contributors — and  lived 
three  months.  But  at  the  close  of  1844  he  secured  what  promised  to 
be  a  more  permanent  position,  as  editor  of  the  Pennsylvania  Free- 
man, whereat  he  married  and  removed  with  his  bride  to  Philadelphia. 
They  set  up  their  simple  house-keeping  in  a  third  story  back  room, 
and  deemed  it  a  kind  of  city  idyll;  Lowell  in  after  life  always  re- 
membered it  with  a  certain  tenderness.  But  in  five  months  he  was 
back  again  in  his  father's  house  at  Elmwood.  For  the  next  two 
years  he  wrote  little  except  a  number  of  articles  contributed  to 
various  papers,  mostly  on  the  slavery  question.  He  had  not  yet 
got  the  ear  of  the  public. 

It  was  the  year  1848  that  revealed  the  range  of  Lowell's  ability 
and  established  his  reputation.  In  that  year  he  pubHshed  three 
noteworthy  volumes  of  poetry.  The  Fable  for  Critics  is  a  half 
satiric  estimate  of  most  of  the  younger  writers  of  that  day,  run  into 
a  verse  surprisingly  facile  and  witty.  Here  Lowell  shows  for  the 
first  time  his  exuberant  high  spirits  in  combination  with  a  remark- 
able accuracy  of  critical  judgment.  The  keenness  and  justice  with 
which  this  young  fellow  characterizes  the  other  young  fellows — most 
of  them  were  under  forty — is  astonishing.     The  Fable  has  never 


384  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

been  adequately  appreciated;  it  is  really  the  best  critical  survey  of 
contemporary  American  literature  at  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  Biglow  Papers  were  a  yet  happier  inspiration.  The 
first  of  them,  "a  sort  of  squib  "  as  he  called  it,  expressing  New- 
England  sentiment  on  the  war  with  Mexico,  appeared  in  the 
*' Boston  Courier"  for  June  17,  1846.  As  the  subsequent  papers 
appeared  they  excited  general  attention,  and  when,  in  184S,  they 
were  collected  into  a  volume  they  were  at  once  recognized  both  in 
England  and  in  America  as  the  most  original  and  effective  political 
satire  this  country  had  produced.  First  and  last,  Lowell's  best  work 
is  in  the  Biglo'^v  Papers.  Here  the  whole  man  speaks.  For  there 
was  a  Parson  Wilbur  in  Lowell,  and  there  was  a  Hosea  Biglow;  and 
both  were  Yankees.  The  third  volume  of  that  year.  The  Vision  of 
Sir  Laiinfal,  if  less  original,  has  been  more  popular,  especially  with 
younger  readers.  It  is  the  type  of  poem  one  hopes  will  always  be 
popular  with  youth;  for  it  is  the  embodiment  of  a  high  ethical  ideal 
in  fresh  and  charming  imagery.  Sir  Launfal  is  Lowell  himself  in 
the  June  of  his  life,  half  mystic  half  social  reformer,  and  in  love  with 
all  things  pure  and  chivalrous.  In  all  Lowell's  work  up  to  this  time 
there  is  an  aggressive  ethical  sentiment,  a  sort  of  militant  righteous- 
ness. "Whenever  you  hear  of  a  good  fight,  go  to  it,"  said  his 
father  to  young  Philip  Sidney;  something  of  this  temper  is  in  all  of 
Lowell's  writing. 

The  promise  of  that  year  1S4S,  however,  was  not  immediately 
fulfilled.  The  next  decade  was  not  a  productive  period  in  Lowell's 
life.  Private  sorrows  in  part  account  for  that.  In  1853  his  wife 
died.  He  emerged  but  slowly  from  the  shadow  of  this  great  sorrow, 
and  his  friends  noticed  in  him  some  loss  thereafter  of  the  buoyant 
elasticity  of  his  earlier  years.  He  gave  some  public  lectures,  and 
spent  a  year  in  Europe.  On  his  return,  in  1856,  he  resided  for  a 
time  with  his  daughter  and  her  governess  Miss  Dunlop,  in  the  house 
of  his  brother-in-law.  Dr.  Estes  Howe.  Later  in  that  year  he  con- 
tracted an  engagement  with  Miss  Dunlop,  who  had  been  an  inti- 
mate friend  of  his  wife;  and  they  were  married  in  September  of 

1857. 

In  1856  he  was  elected  to  the  chair  of  Modern  Languages  in 
Harvard  College,  just  vacated  by  the  resignation  of  Longfellow. 
This  position  he  held  for  sixteen  years.  As  a  college  professor  he 
was  unhampered  by  any  academic  traditions,  and  his  lectures, 
though  always  inspiring  to  thoughtful  men,  were  often  very  uncon- 
ventional. It  is  more  important  to  note  that  one  product  of  his 
literary  studies  during  the  long  period  of  his  professorship  was  the 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  385 

series  of  brilliant  critical  essays  upon  which  his  reputation  as  a  prose 
writer  must  chiefly  rest.  These  essays,  first  published  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  and  North  American  Review,  were  collected  in  the 
volumes  Among  My  Books.  1870  and  1876,  and  My  Study  Windo2vs, 
1871. 

Before  Lowell  had  been  in  his  professor's  chair  a  year,  he  had 
accepted  another  position  even  more  important.  The  first  number 
of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  appeared  in  November,  1857,  under  his 
editorship.  He  carried  the  double  work  of  professor  and  editor  only 
four  years;  but  in  that  time  the  Atlantic  took  a  foremost  place  in 
the  periodical  literature  of  England  and  America.  And  no  wonder; 
for  it  included  in  its  early  list  of  contributors  almost  every  writer  of 
eminence  in  New  England — Longfellow,  Emerson,  Whittier,  Holmes, 
Cabot,  Higginson,  Sumner,  Motley,  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  a  score  of 
others  hardly  less  prominent.  Lowell,  although  he  resigned  his 
editorship  in  186 r,  continued  to  be  one  of  its  most  valued  contribu- 
tors. The  outburst  of  patriotic  feeling  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Civil  War  stirred  in  him  the  old  poetic  impulse,  and  his  war  poems 
published  in  the  Atlantic  between  1862  and  1865,  the  Washers  of 
the  Shroud,  the  Second  Series  of  the  Biglow  Papers,  and  the  great 
Harvard  Commemoration  Ode  contain  his  very  noblest  work. 
Nearly  all  his  writing,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  during  this  period, 
was  on  national  themes.  From  1863  to  1872,  he  consented  to  share 
with  his  friend  Professor  Norton  the  editorship  of  the  North  A  meri- 
ican  Review,  and  although  he  turned  over  to  his  colleague  most  of 
the  editorial  work,  he  himself  contributed  to  the  Review  a  series  of 
vigorous  political  papers. 

As  years  went  by,  Lowell  found  the  duties  of  his  college  professor- 
ship increasingly  irksome.  They  dulled  his  poetic  impulse — 
"  dampened  his  powder,"  as  he  put  it.  In  fact,  his  poetic  work  was 
practically  finished  with  The  Cathedral,  1869,  a  poem  which  shows  a 
wealth  of  reflection  rather  than  the  freshness  of  imaginative  im- 
pulse. And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  secluded  academic  life  seemed 
to  remove  him  from  active  participation  in  those  public  affairs  in 
which  he  had  come  to  take  increasing  interest.  All  through  the 
troubled  period  of  reconstruction  that  followed  the  Civil  War  he 
followed  the  course  of  events  with  anxiety  over  what  seemed  the 
increasing  corruption  in  our  national  politics,  and  was  a  representa- 
tive in  the  National  RepubHcan  Convention  which  nominated  Mr. 
Hayes  for  the  presidency.  It  was  not,  therefore,  a  matter  of 
surprise  that  he  should  accept  the  offer  by  president  Hayes  of  the 
Mission  to  Spain  m.  iSyj;  and  yet  more  natural  that,  two  years  and 


386  Biographical   Sketches  and  Notes 

a  half  later,  he  should  gladly  accept  the  transfer  from  Spain  to 
England.  He  took  up  his  official  residence  in  London  as  American 
^Minister  in  March,  1880.  He  had,  indeed,  some  misgivings  as  to 
his  reception;  for  in  the  Biglow  Papers  and  in  the  essay  on  A 
Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners  he  had  said  some  very  plain 
things  in  criticism  of  England  and  the  English  people;  and  during 
the  whole  period  of  his  English  residence  he  was  the  strenuous 
defender  of  America.  But  his  outspoken  frankness  did  him  no 
harm.  He  was  soon  recognized  as  representing  the  best  culture  and 
the  best  statesmanship  of  his  country — an  ideal  scholar-diplomat. 
Probably  no  American  minister  at  the  court  of  St.  James  was  ever 
more  generally  admired  or  more  highly  honored;  and  his  recall  was 
regretted  by  all  classes  of  Englishmen.  After  the  inauguration  of 
President  Cleveland,  he  resigned  his  portfolio,  and  came  back  to 
America  in  June,  1885. 

The  last  years  of  his  life  were  quiet  and  lonely.  His  wife  had 
died  in  London  just  before  his  return.  He  tried  to  resume  his 
studies;  he  gave  some  public  lectures;  but  his  work  was  really  done. 
A  thin  v^olume  of  verse,  mostly  reminiscent.  Heartsease  and  Rue,  1888, 
was  the  only  important  publication  of  this  closing  period.  He  died, 
August  12,  1891. 

Lowell's  reputation  as  a  prose  writer  must  rest  principally  upon 
the  series  of  his  critical  essays  in  the  volumes  Among  My  Books  and 
My  Study  Windows.  He  had  two  of  the  first  requisites  of  the 
literary  critic;  keen  and  just  appreciation  of  the  best  things  in 
letters,  and  a  remarkably  catholic  taste.  It  is  seldom  that  a 
critic  can  discuss  with  equal  appreciation  two  such  polar  opposites 
as,  let  us  say,  Dante  and  Dryden.  Lowell's  criticism  is  not 
formal  or  academic;  he  has  no  critical  yardstick  to  lay  down  upon  a 
book.  In  fact,  he  cares  less  for  the  book  than  for  the  man  in  the 
book.  Such  papers  as  those  on  Dante,  Spenser,  Wordsworth, 
Rousseau,  are  excellent  studies  in  personality.  On  the  whole,  one 
risks  little  in  saying  that  these  essays  form  the  best  body  of  literary 
criticism  that  any  American  writer  has  yet  produced. 

Perhaps,  however,  all  the  characteristics  of  Lowell's  manner  are 
best  seen  in  those  more  personal  essays  like  that  included  in  this 
volume.  Here  he  is  not  bound  by  conformity  to  any  critical 
princijiles,  and  not  concerned  to  render  any  final  estimate.  He  is 
simply  expressing  his  personal  feelings.  He  can  let  himself  go. 
For  the  merits  and  defects  of  Lowell's  writing  proceed  from  the 
same  essentials  of  character.  He  is  always  profuse  and  exuberant. 
Writing  from  a  full  mind,  he  sometimes  seems  impatient  of  the 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes         587 

preliminary  work  of  selecting  and  arranging  his  matter,  with  the 
result  that  his  essay  lacks  method  and  is  prone  to  run  off  into 
digression.  Then  his  wide  reading,  at  the  service  of  an  active 
imagination,  made  him  the  most  allusive  and  one  of  the  most  meta- 
phorical of  writers.  He  can  seldom  resist  the  lure  of  a  striking 
analogy  or  curious  example.  Moreover,  his  exuberant  humor  is 
often  a  little  too  much  for  his  dignity.  The  sticklers  for  classic 
propriety  get  a  good  many  shocks  from  his  pages.  For  he  was  a 
Yankee,  not  over  respectful  of  dignities  and  seldom  fearful  of  put- 
ting his  reputation  for  sober  sense  at  the  hazard  of  a  joke.  Indeed, 
he  is  in  all  ways  indifferent  to  the  starched  rhetorician,  and  con- 
fesses in  one  of  his  poems  that  he  is  more  a  Goth  than  a  Greek. 
He  likes  freedom  better  than  precision.  'He  likes  the  idiomatic 
word,  the  quaint  allusion,  the  homely  incident. 

But  all  these  faults — so  far  as  they  are  faults — are  hardly  noticed 
in  such  an  essay  as  the  Condescension  in  Foreigners.  Indeed,  most 
readers  will  think  that  in  all  the  essays,  faults  like  these  are  venial 
when  compared  with  the  substantial  merits  of  Lowell's  prose.  For 
they  all  grow  out  of  that  full  and  hearty  personaHty  which  gives 
charm  to  his  writing.  Perhaps  classic  perfection  of  manner  must 
usually  be  purchased  at  some  cost  of  warm  and  spontaneous  personal 
utterance.  At  all  events,  Lowell  made  no  such  sacrifice.  No  prose 
is  more  vital,  racy,  more  full  of  the  man.  If  it  now  and  then 
seems  bookish,  that  is  because  Lowell  was  a  bookish  man,  always 
ready  to  fit  any  scene  or  action  with  a  parallel  from  his  reading.  But 
he  is  never  pedantic  or  dry.  For  he  was  never  the  slave  of  his 
reading;  his  first  interest  was  in  men.  To  a  most  unusual  degree 
he  united  the  temper  of  the  man  of  the  study  with  the  temper  of  the 
man  of  affairs — Hosea  Biglow  with  the  college  professor.  In  these 
essays  there  are  learning,  imagination,  wit,  satire,  passion;  but  all 
fused  in  a  great  personality.  To  read  them  is  to  make  acquaintance 
with  one  of  the  wisest  and  most  broadly  cultured,  and  at  the  same 
time  one  of  the  most  genial  and  homely,  of  American  writers. 

On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners 

This  essay,  printed  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  January,  1869,  was 
prompted  by  Lowell's  resentment  of  the  attitude  of  England  toward 
this  country  during  our  Civil  War.  That  resentment  found  pungent 
expression  in  the  Biglow  Papers  as  early  as  1862,  when  England 
demanded — justly,  but  with  needless  arrogance — the  surrender  of 
the  confederate  commissioners,  Mason  and  Slidell,  whom  Captain 


388  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

Wilkes  of  our  navy  had  taken  out  of  the  English  merchant  vessel, 
Trent.  Mr.  Lowell's  lines  express  very  well  the  feeling  of  the 
North  at  that  time: 

"We  own  the  ocean,  tu,  John: 
You  mus'n'  take  it  hard, 
Ef  we  can't  think  with  you,  John, 
It's  jest  your  own  back  yard. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he  'I  guess, 
Ef  thefs  his  claim,'  sez  he, 
'The  fencin'-staff'll  cost  enough 
To  bust  up  friend  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me'!" 

"We  give  the  critters  back,  John, 
Cos  Abram  thought  'twas  right; 

It  warn't  your  bullyin'  clack,  John, 
Provokin'  us  to  fight, 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  '  I  guess 
We've  a  hard  row,'  sez  he, 
*To  hoe  jest  now;  but  thet,  somehow, 
May  happen  to  J.  B. 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me'!'' 

As  the  war  went  on,  this  feeling  of  resentment  was  intensified  by 
the  general  English  sympathy  with  the  South,  and  especially  by  the 
indifference  with  which  the  English  government  seemed  to  regard 
the  fact  that  privateers  to  prey  upon  American  commerce  were 
built,  armed  and  equipped  in  England,  and  sailed  from  English 
ports. 

After  the  close  of  the  war,  the  American  government  made  claims 
upon  England  for  damages  by  these  privateers;  and  it  was  while  the 
discussion  of  these  claims  was  hottest  that  this  paper  was  written. 
A  treaty,  negotiated  with  Great  Britain  by  our  minister,  Mr 
Reverdy  Johnson,  was  rejected  by  the  Senate  because  it  made  no 
adequate  provision  for  the  settlement  of  these  claims.  In  April 
1869,  Charles  Sumner  made  a  famous  speech  urging  extravagant 
claims  upon  England  for  indirect  or  "consequential"  damages. 
There  was  great  excitement  in  both  countries,  and  for  a  time  there 
seemed  probability  of  an  open  rupture.  Mr.  Lowell  himself 
dreaded  that,  and  evidently  thought  that  a  frank,  but  good- 
humored,  expression  of  American  feeling  would  appeal  to  the  Eng- 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  389 

lish  sense  of  fair  play.     In  May,  1869,  he  wrote  lo  Mr.  Godkin, 
editor  of  TJie  Nation: 

"I  wrote  the  essay  you  allude  to,  mainly  with  the  hope  of  bringing 
about  a  better  understanding.  My  heart  aches  with  apprehension 
as  I  sit  here  in  my  solitude  and  brood  over  the  present  aspect  of 
things  between  the  two  countries.  We  are  crowding  England  into 
a  fight  which  would  be  a  horrible  calamity  for  both — but  worse  for 
us  than  for  them  ...  It  is  not  so  much  of  what  England  did 
as  ot  the  animus  with  which  she  did  it  that  we  complain— a  matter 
of  sentiment  wholly  incapable  of  arbitration.  Sumner's  speech 
expressed  the  feeling  of  the  country  very  truly,  but  I  fear  it  was  not 
a  wise  speech  ...  It  is  a  frightful  tangle — but  let  us  hope  for 
the  best." 

242,  12.  Twice  made  the  scarlet  leaves  of  October  seem  stained 
with  blood.  Two  nephews  of  Lowell  fell  in  the  civil  war;  James 
Jackson  Lowell,  killed  at  Leesburg,  June  30,  1862;  Charles  Russell 
Lowell,  died  of  wounds  received  in  the  battle  of  Cedar  Mountain, 
Oct.  20,  1864,  See  the  touching  stanzas  in  the  second  series  of 
Biglow  Papers,  no.  X. 

243,  5.  Hemy  Vaughan's  Rainbow:  Henry  Vaughan  (1622- 
1695),  one  of  the  most  quaint  and  original  minor  poets  of  his 
century.     The  poem  referred  to  begins, 

"Still  young  and  fine!  but  what  is  still  in  view 
We  slight  as  old  and  soil'd,  though  fresh  and  new." 

243,  24.  Collins:  William  Collins  (1721-1759).  His  "Ode  to 
Evening"  is  the  most  noteworthy  poem  ot  nature  written  in 
England  between  1650  and  1750. 

243,  26.  Dodsley's  Collection:  Robert  Dodsley  (1703-1764), 
London  bookseller,  published  in  1744,  A  Select  Collection  of  Old 
Plays,  edited  by  Thomas  Coxeter,  12  Vols.  I  have  not  identified 
the  passage  on  Solitude  referred  to. 

243,  30.  Estate  in  Gavelkind.  "In  Great  Britain  or  Ireland  an 
estate  which  by  custom  having  the  force  of  law  is  inheritable  by  all 
the  sons  together,  and  therefore  subject  to  partition  instead  of 
going  exclusively  to  the  eldest." — Century  Dictionary. 

244,  6.  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  heroes:  Ann  Radcliffe  (1764-1823), 
author  of  several  very  wild  romances,  of  which  the  most  famous  is 
The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho. 

245,  17.  Hatem  Tai's  tent:  Hatem  (oi  Hatim)  et  Tai,  chief  of 
the  Arabian  tribe  of  the  Tai  in  the  fifth  century,  famed  in  Eastern 
legend  for  his  generosity. 


390  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

246,  4.  Mecklenburg-Schwerin :  a  grand-duchy  in  North  Ger- 
many, forming  a  part  of  the  German  Empire. 

246,  12.  General  Banks :  Nathaniel  Prentiss  Banks  (1816-1894). 
Massachusetts  politician,  general  during  the  civil  war,  and  member 
of  Congress  from  Massachusetts  1865-73,  1875-77,  1889-gi. 
He  was  nicknamed  "The  Bobbin  Boy"  because  in  boyhood  he 
worked  in  a  cotton  mill  of  which  his  father  was  superintendent. 

246,  22.  Buckle  doctrine  of  averages:  Henry  Thomas  Buckle 
(1821-1862),  English  historian.  His  principal  book,  A  History  of 
Civilization  in  England  was  left  unfinished  at  his  death.  He  held 
that  the  exceptional  abilities  of  different  individuals  balanced  each 
other,  producing  a  general  average,  which  is  determined  principally 
by  external  causes,  such  as  climate,  soil,  food,  etc.,  so  that  any  par- 
ticular social  phenomena — e.g.,  suicides — occur  with  great  uniform- 
ity in  successive  years.     See  especially  Chaps.  I  and  IV  of  Vol.  I. 

246,  25.  Wandering  Jew:  according  to  tradition  a  Jew  who  re- 
fused permission  to  Christ  to  sit  down  when  bearing  the  cross  to 
Golgotha,  and  who  was  condemned  by  Christ  to  "wander  on  earth 
till  I  return." 

247,  9.  Gano:  Italian  form  of  Ganelon.  Character  in  the 
Chanson  de  Roland,  who  betrays  Roland  to  defeat  and  death; 
he  is  the  typical  traitor  in  medieval  epic  romance. 

247,  15.  Baden  Revolution.  The  grand-duchy  of  Baden  is 
situated  in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  German  empire.  The 
"revolution"  referred  to  is  probably  that  by  which  the  Duchy  in 
181 5  joined  the  German  Confederation. 

247,  18.  Baden-Baden:  chief  city  of  the  Duchy  of  Baden,  noted 
for  its  medicinal  springs,  and  even  more  noted,  for  more  than  a  half 
century,  as  the  most  fashionable  gaming  center  of  Europe — hence 
the  "revolutions  practised  every  season"  there. 

247,  25.  Jonathan  Wild:  a  novel  (1743)  by  Henry  Fielding. 
"James  Wild  distinguished  himself  on  both  sides  the  question  in 
the  Civil  War,  passing  from  one  to  t'other,  as  Heaven  seemed  to 
declare  itself  in  favor  of  cither  party."     Chap.  ii. 

248,  6.  Post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc:  "After  that,  therefore  on 
account  of  that."  The  fallacy  of  assuming  that  the  antecedent  of 
any  event  is  therefore  its  cause. 

248,  29.  Pigeon-livered  and  lack  gall.  See  Hamlet,  .\ct.  II, 
line  604  . 

250,  19.  Art  thou  there,  old  Truepenny?  Hamlet,  kct.  I,  sc, 
V,  line  150. 

250,  28.  Montaigne.     See  Note  on  line  13,  page  227. 


Biographical  Sketche?  and  Notes  391 

250,  32.  P^reBouhours  (1628-1702):  French  Jesuit  grammarian 
and  man  oi  lelters.  His  principal  work  was  Enlretiens  d'Arisle  et 
d'Eiigene. 

250,  33.  Si  un  Allemand  peut  etre  bel-esprit;  "Whether  a 
German  can  be  a  man  of  letters." 

251,  I.  Puckler-Muskau :  Prince  Hermann  Ludwig  Heinrich 
von  (i 785-1871),  a  German  writer  of  travels  in  which  the  satiric 
temper  is  often  prominent. 

251,  3.  Chance  phrase  of  gentle  Hawthorne:  The  reference  is 
probably  to  a  passage  in  Our  Old  Home  in  which  H&wthorne  de- 
scribes in  not  complimentary  terms  a  typical  English  dowager  as 
"massive  with  solid  beef  and  streaky  tallow,  so  that  you  inevitably 
think  of  her  as  made  up  of  steaks  and  sirloins."  He  was  obliged 
to  see  the  unfortunate  passage  quoted  with  indignation  in  a  good 
many  Enghsh  journals. 

251,  22.  That  unexpressive  she.  "The  fair,  the  chaste,  and 
unexpressive  she." — .4^  You  Like  It.     Act  IH,  sc.  ii,  line  10. 

252,  ID.  Laius:  king  of  Thebes.  Being  warned  by  an  oracle 
that  he  would  lose  his  life  if  his  son  Oedipus  should  reach  man's 
estate,  Laius  gave  the  child  to  a  herdsman  to  be  destroyed;  but  the 
herdsman,  moved  with  pity  saved  the  child  alive.  Years  afterward, 
Oedipus  unwittingly  killed  his  father. 

252,  16.  Holbein:  Hans  Holbein  (1497-1543),  greatest  German 
painter  of  the  early  sixteenth  century.  The  "ail-but  loveliest  of 
Madonnas"  is  probably  that  in  the  gallery  at  Dresden. 

252,  17.  Rembrandt:  Rembrandt  Hermanzoon  van  Rijn(i6o7- 
1669),  most  famous  painter  of  the  Dutch  school.  The  "graceful 
girl  on  his  knee"  is  his  wife,  "Saskia." 

252,  19.  Rubens:  Peter  Paul  (1577-1640),  celebrated  Flemish 
painter.  His  "abounding  goddesses, "  which  are  not  at  all  etherial, 
were  said  to  be  mostly  copies  of  his  wife  Helena  Fourment. 

252,  24.  Riveted  with  gigantic  piles,  etc.:  from  "The  Character 
of  Holland,"  a  satire  by  Andrew  Marvell  (1621-1678). 

252,  32.  Motley:  John  Lothrop  Motley  (1814-1877),  one  of  the 
most  eminent  of  American  historians.  The  reference  here  is  to  his 
Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic. 

253,  27.  Atlantis:  a  mythical  island  in  the  Atlantic  fabled  to 
have  disappeared  with  all  its  inhabitants. 

254,  2.  Who  reads  a  Russian  book?  The  "Edinburgh"  had 
asked  "Who  reads  an  American  book?" 

255,  5.  The  World's  West-End.  The  West-End  is  the  fashion- 
able residential  part  of  London. 


^g2  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

255,  12.  VeredeVere: 

"  that  repose 
Which  stamps  the  caste  of  Vere  de  Vere." 

Tennyson's  Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere. 

255>  3°-  Lucifer,  Son  of  the  Morning:  properly  the  Morning 
Star;  but  by  a  mistake  in  the  rendering  of  a  verse  of  Scripture 
{Isaiah,  xiv,  12)  applied  to  Satan. 

256,  26.  The  Indian  mutiny.  The  Sepoy  or  Indian  mutiny 
against  the  British  in  India,  1857-58,  was  marked  by  the  noblest 
endurance  and  heroism  on  the  part  of  the  garrisons  at  Delhi  and 
Lucknow.  Men  like  Sir  Henry  Havelock  and  Colin  Campbell  who 
defended  and  relieved  Lucknow  are  in  Lowell's  thought. 

257,  8.  Bloomsbury :  a  section  of  London  north  of  New  Oxford 
street  which  a  century  and  a  half  ago  seemed  likely  to  be  the  aris- 
tocratic quarter  of  London,  but  which  has  now  been  mostly  given 
over  to  a  different  class — it  contains  many  pensions  and  boarding 
houses. 

257,  10.  Europa  upon  his  back.  In  Greek  myth,  Jupiter,  in 
love  with  Europa,  took  the  form  of  a  bull  and  carried  her  off  upon 
his  back. 

258,  I.  Unsexes  her  with  the  bravo.  Because  "bravo"  is  the 
masculine  form,  instead  of  "brava,"  feminine. 

258,  6.  Agassiz,  Guyot,  and  Goldwin  Smith :  eminent  scholars 
of  foreign  birth  whose  work  was  largely  done  in  America.  Jean 
Louis  Rodolphe  x^gassiz,  born  and  educated  in  Switzerland,  profes- 
sor of  zoology  and  geology  in  Harvard  University,  1848  to  his 
death  in  1873;  Arnold  Henry  Guyot  (1807-1884),  eminent  geog- 
rapher, born  in  Switzerland,  professor  in  Princeton  from  1855  to 
his  death;  Goldwin  Smith  (1823-1910),  EngHsh  historian  and  econo- 
mist who  came  to  America  to  take  the  chair  of  constitutional 
history  in  Cornell  University  at  the  opening  of  that  institution  in 
1868,  holding  the  position  until  1871,  when  he  removed  his  residence 
to  Toronto. 

258,  17.  Rousseau-tinted  spectacles:  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau 
(1712-1778),  the  famous  Swiss  philosopher,  sentimentalist,  roman- 
cer. His  teachings  on  the  origin  of  society  and  the  basis  of  govern- 
ment had  great  influence  over  Europe  and  America.  The  "French 
officers"  may  have  expected  to  sec  in  the  new  American  republic 
something  of  the  charm  of  a  simple  and  primitive  society  that 
Rousseau  had  assumed  in  his  Contral  Social. 

258,  24.  Niaiseries  of  M.  Maurice  Sand.     Maurice  Sand  is  the 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  393 

pseudonym — inherited  from  his  mother  "George  Sand" — of 
Maurice  Dudevant,  whose  "trivialities"  on  America  were  published 
in  the  "Revue  de  Deux  Mondes." 

258,  3.  Jean  Crapaud:  nickname  for  a  Frenchman. 

259,  3.  Gate  de  I'eau:  "Look  out  for  water"  (slops). 

259,  4.  Duvergier  d'  Hauranne:  Prosper  (i 798-1881):  French 
politician  and  journalist. 

259,  6.  Le  Franpais  est  plutot  indiscret  que  confiant:  "The 
Frenchman  is  often  indiscreet,  seldom  confiding." 

259,  8.  Tant-soit-peu :  "just  a  little." 

259,  16.  Barnun?:  Phineas  Taylor  (1810-1891):  great  American 
showman. 

260,  18.  Mutato  nomine,  de  te :  "The  name  changed,  (the  fable 
or  the  charge  applies)  to  you." 

261,  I.  L.  S. :  Leslie  Stephen,  English  man  of  letters,  and  a  warm 
friend  of  Lowell.  In  the  summer  of  1868  he  paid  Lowell  a  visit, 
just  before  this  essay  was  written. 

261,  3.  Clough:  Arthur  Hugh  (1819-1861),  an  English  poet, 
who  spent  a  year  in  America  at  the  invitation  of  Emerson  and 
formed  many  friendships  here.  Lowell's  estimate  of  his  poetry 
hardly  seems  extravagant  to  many  of  his  admirers. 

261,  5.  T.  H. :  Thomas  Hughes,  the  well-known  English  author 
and  reformer,  author  of  Tom  Broivn's  School  Days  and  Tom  Brown 
at  Oxford.  He  lectured  in  the  United  States  in  1871,  and  in  1880 
founded  a  "Rugby  Colony"  of  P^nglish  settlers  in  Tennessee. 

261,  12.  British  parson,  traveling  in  Newfoundland.  I  have  not 
identified  the  reformer. 

261,  27.  Brocken-specter.  The  Brocken  is  the  highest  peak  of 
the  Harz  mountains  in  Germany.  The  "specter"  is  a  peculiar 
shadow  or  mirage  which  takes  the  form  of  a  vastly  magnified  human 
figure  or  figures,  seen  upon  the  mountain  or  in  the  sky. 

263,  13.  If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh?  See  Shakespeare, 
Merchant  of  Venice,  Act  iii,  sc.  i,  line  68. 

263,  30.  Wilhelmus  Conquestor:  William  the  Conqueror,  the 
monarch  who  achieved  the  Norman  conquest  of  England,  1066. 

263,  34.  Carlyle's  sneer.  Carlyle  had  spoken  with  some  con- 
tempt of  the  American  people  before;  but  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil 
War  provoked  him  to  bitter  cynicism.  The  war  was,  he  said, 
only  "the  burning  out  a  smoky  chimney,"  a  "nigger  agony";  and 
in  1863  he  published  in  Macmillan's  Magazine  a  vulgar  squib, 
Iliad  in  Nuce  (Iliad  in  a  Nutshell)  of  which  he  was  himself  afterward 
a  little  ashamed. 


394  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

264,  2.  The  Hohonzollerns :  the  German  imperial  family  to 
which  Frederick  the  Great  belonged,  whose  history  Carlyle  was  then 
(1858-1865J  publishing. 

264,  22.  Leigh  Hunt  (1784-1859),  an  English  poet  and  essayist. 
"More  than  half  Americanized"  because  Hunt's  father  had  passed 
his  early  life  in  Philadelphia,  and  had  married  an  American  young 
woman;  perhaps  also  because  Hunt  all  his  life  showed  the  meaner 
side  of  a  "shopkeeper's"  nature,  without  the  shopkeeper's  thrift. 

264,  30.  John  Hawkwood :  a  famous  Condottiore  or  free  lance 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  He  served  with  distinction  in  the  wars 
of  Edward  Third,  and  later  in  the  century  took  service  in  Italy. 
The  allusion  to  a  needle  refers  to  the  tradition  that  in  his  youth  he 
had  been  a  tailor  in  London. 

264,  34.  Cleon  into  the  place  of  Pericles:  i.e.,  a  demagogue  in 
the  place  of  a  statesman.  Pericles  was  the  great  Athenian  statesman 
and  orator,  leader  of  the  democratic  party;  at  his  death,  429  B.  C, 
his  place  as  leader  of  the  party  was  taken  by  Cleon,  a  fluent  and 
shifty  man. 

265,  7.  Porphyro  geniti :  "born  in  the  purple." 

267,  26.  A  Dana  here  and  there:  Charles  A.  Dana  (1819-97) 
prominent  editor  and  politician.     He  served  as  Assistant  Secretary 
of  war  (1863-65),  and  when  this  essay  was  written,  had  just  begun 
(1868)  his  long  career  as  editor  of  the  New  York  Sun. 

268,  15.  Charing  Cross.  "I  talked  of  the  cheerfulness  of  Fleet 
Street  .  .  .  'Why  sir'  (said  Johnson)  'Fleet  street  has  a  very 
animated  appearance;  but  I  think  the  full  tide  of  human  existence 
is' at  Charing  Cross.'" — Boswell's  Johnson,  Vol.  ii,  p.  337  (Hill's 
ed.). 

268,  18.  Doubtless  God  could,  etc.  "We  may  say  of  angling  as 
Dr.  Boteler  said  of  strawberries,  '  Doubtless  God  could  have  made  a 
better  berry,  but  doubtless  God  never  did.'" — Izaak  Walton's 
Complete  Angler,  Part  i,  ch.  i. 

269,  I.  Reverdy  Johnson:  appointed  minister  to  England  in 
1868,  and  negotiated  in  that  year  the  Johnson-Clarendon  treaty, 
which  was  rejected  by  the  Senate  the  following  year,  on  the  ground 
that  it  made  no  adequate  provision  for  the  payment  by  England  of 
the  claim  for  damages  by  the  Alabama  and  other  Confederate 
privateers  fitted  out  in  English  ports.  When  this  essay  was  a 
writing,  Mr.  Johnson  was  very  popular  in  England — less  so  in  his 
own  country. 

269,-  6.  My  Lord,  this  means  war.  In  September,  1863,  Charles 
Francis    Adams.    American    ministM   to   England,   learning   that 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  395 

another  vessel  was  about  to  sail  from  England  as  a  Confederate  war 
vessel,  wrote  to  Lord  Russell,  English  Foreign  Secretary,  informing 
him  of  the  fact,  and  added,  "It  would  be  superfluous  in  me  to  point 
out  to  your  lordship  that  this  is  war." 

269,  29.  Since  i66o,  when  you  married  again:  that  is,  after  the 
Restoration  of  the  monarchy  in  Charles  Second  and  the  emphatic 
repudiation  of  republican  ideas. 

270,  3.  Do,  child,  go  to  it  grandam,  etc.  See  Shakespeare,  King 
John,  Act.  II,  scene  i,  lines  1 59-161. 

Queries  and  Suggestions 

I.  Make  out  an  analysis  of  this  essay  that  will  show  its  method. 
■2.  Is  there  any  special  appropriateness  in  the  beautiful  passage 

of  quiet  description  with  which  it  opens? 

3.  Show  the  purpose  of  the  narrative  that  follows  as  an  introduc- 
tion to  the  paper. 

4.  Is  the  introductory  portion  of  the  essay  too  long? 

5.  Is  there  any  explanation  for  the  irritating  condescension  that 
foreigners  have  shown  toward  America  and  Americans? 

6.  Lowell  said  he  wrote  this  essay  with  the  hope  of  "bringing 
about  a  better  understanding"  between  England  and  America;  do 
you  think  it  was  well  calculated  to  have  that  effect? 

7.  Select  from  the  essay  at  least  five  excellent  examples  of  satire. 

8.  Show  by  an  examination  of  some  three  or  four  pages  the  fre- 
quency and  range  of  Lowell's  allusions. 

9.  In  the  same  way  show  the  wealth  of  imagination  in  his  meta- 
phors. 

ID.  Rewrite  in  plain  language  the  figurative  statements  in  the  last 
two  sentences  of  the  paragraph  on  page  262. 

Do  you  think  these  sentences  suggest  any  criticism  of  Lowell's 
use  of  metaphor? 

II.  Characterize  as  well  as  you  can  the  humor  of  Lowell,  to  which 
his  writing  owes  so  much  of  its  charm. 

12.  If  you  knew  nothing  else  of  Lowell's  life  or  work,  what  traits 
of  his  mind  and  temper  could  you  infer  from  this  essay? 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  was  a  hero  and  adventurer;  but  his  hero- 
ism and  adventure  were  in  the  realm  of  the  spirit.  Almost  the  only 
outward  incidents  in  his  life  were  those  brave  journeyings  about  the 
world,  over  seas  and  across  continents,  to  find  some  place  where  he 


396  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

could  live  and  work.  He  was  born  in  Edinburgh,  in  1S50.  Hit, 
father  and  grandfather  were  civil  engineers  in  the  Scottish  light- 
house service,  hardy  men,  clear  of  head  and  strong  of  hand,  with  a 
strenuous  sense  of  duty.  From  his  mother,  the  daughter  of  a  Scot- 
tish minister,  he  is  said  to  have  inherited  his  cheerful  optimism, 
along  with  that  ethical  interest  that  made  him  always  something  of 
a  preacher.  From  her,  too,  he  inherited  his  tendency  to  pulmonary 
disease;  but  she,  although  always  an  invalid,  outlived  both  her 
husband  and  her  son.  From  early  boyhood  Stevenson  was  slight 
and  frail  of  body,  adventurous  and  imaginative  in  temper.  He 
had  been  intended  for  the  profession  of  his  father;  but  it  was  evident 
before  the  close  of  his  university  days  that  he  had  neither  strength 
nor  inclination  for  that.  He  then,  at  the  wish  of  his  father,  began  the 
study  ol  law,  and  after  five  years  passed  his  examinations,  and  was 
called  to  the  Scottish  bar.  But  some  of  the  most  gloomy  months 
of  his  life  fell  in  those  years.  He  knew  there  could  be  no  satisfac- 
tion nor  success  for  him  in  the  law.  His  one  desire  was  to  make  of 
himself  a  man  of  letters;  but  meantime  it  seemed  he  must  either 
starve  or  live  on  the  bounty  of  his  father.  Worst  of  all,  his  health, 
always  feeble,  now  broke  down  altogether,  and  in  the  fall  of  1873 
he  was  sent  to  the  south  of  France  to  save  his  life.  The  paper 
Ordered  South,  printed  in  Maonillan's  Magazine  the  next  spring,  is 
a  poignant  expression  of  his  loneliness  and  depression.  Years 
afterward,  in  a  note  added  to  this  paper  when  republished,  he  says  in 
apology  for  the  mood  of  the  writer,  "  A  young  man  finds  himself  one 
too  many  in  the  world;  he  has  no  calling;  no  obvious  utility;  no  ties 
but  to  his  parents,  and  these  he  is  sure  to  disregard.  I  do  not  think 
that  a  proper  allowance  has  been  made  for  the  true  causes  of  suffer- 
ing in  youth."  But  in  the  course  of  the  winter  this  hopeless  temper 
passed  away;  and  he  never  allowed  it  to  return.  There  is  an 
interval  of  less  than  four  years  between  the  Ordered  South  and  the 
Acs  Triplex;  the  difference  in  temper  between  the  two  is  amazing. 
Before  1878  the  young  man  has  regained  his  courage;  he  can  do 
stoutly  the  work  of  the  day;  can  taste  to  the  full  the  pleasures  of 
life;  and  can  look  with  dauntless  and  deQant  cheer  into  the  very 
face  of  death. 

But  this  change  did  not  mean  any  permanent  security  in  his 
health.  The  record  of  the  years  from  1874  to  1880  is  the  story  of 
frequent  flights,  for  a  considerable  portion  of  every  year,  to  some 
climate  where  he  could  live  and  breathe — to  Paris,  Barbizon, 
Mentonc,  Switzerland.  Yet  those  years  were  among  the  most 
profitable  of  his  life.     He  had  definitely  resolved  upon  the  literarj' 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  397 

career,  and  his  father  no  longer  discouraged  it.  His  early  papers  in 
the  magazines  had  attracted  the  attention  of  discriminating  readers, 
and  the  circle  of  his  acquaintance  soon  included  a  number  of  the 
most  promising  young  English  writers,  Sidney  Colvin,  Edmund 
Gosse,  Leslie  Stephen,  Andrew  Lang,  W.  T.  Henley.  During  those 
years  he  spent  much  time  in  France,  and  the  influence  of  French  life 
and  French  literature  may  be  seen  in  the  increasing  flexibility, 
point,  and  precision  of  his  writings.  It  is  the  period  of  the  Inland 
Voyage,  the  Travels  witJi  a  Donkey,  and  all  of  those  delightful  essays 
afterwards  collected  in  the  volume  Virginibus  Puerisque.  He  was 
sedulously  studying  his  art;  by  1878  he  may  almost  be  said  to  have 
mastered  it.  And  his  mind  was  ripening  as  well  as  his  art.  It  may 
be  questioned  whether  in  matter  as  well  as  in  manner  such  an  essaj' 
as  the  Aes  Triplex  is  not  the  equal  of  anything  he  ever  wrote.  In  its 
union  of  the  brave  confidence  of  youth  with  the  maturer  wisdom 
of  years,  and  in  the  easy  perfection  of  its  phrase,  this  is  amazingly 
good  prose  for  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven. 

It  was  late  in  1876,  when  staying  with  the  artist  colony  at  Grez 
near  Barbizon,  that  Stevenson  first  met  Mrs.  Osborne,  an  American 
lady  whose  family  life  had  been  broken  up — by  no  fault  of  hers — and 
who  had  come  to  Europe  to  educate  her  children.  It  was  a  case  of 
love  at  first  sight.  Next  year  Mrs.  Osborne  returned  to  California, 
and  in  1879  Stevenson  determined  to  follow.  His  parents  and  all 
his  friends  thought  the  acquaintance  unfortunate;  but  opposition 
and  difficulty  only  spurred  his  romantic  resolve.  He  took  steerage 
passage  in  a  cheap  steamer,  crossed  the  continent  in  an  emigrant 
train,  and  in  the  last  days  of  summer  arrived  in  San  Francisco. 
In  the  next  six  months,  he  lay  for  weeks  at  the  point  of  death  in  a 
goat  ranch  in  the  Coast  Mountains;  a  little  recovered,  he  watched 
the  wild,  half-Spanish  life  in  the  ranches  and  the  town  of  Monterey; 
found  some  friends  in  the  raw  and  boisterous  life  of  San  Francisco; 
turned  his  experience  into  some  very  interesting  books — and  in  May, 
1880,  he  married  Mrs.  Osborne  and  brought  her  home  to  the  house 
of  his  now  relenting  and  approving  father.  He  had  been  at  grips 
with  death  half  a  dozen  times;  he  had  met  many  varieties  of 
hardship;  he  had  not  yet  been  able  to  make  the  great  public  listen 
to  him.  But  all  this  only  sent  this  man  out  more  bravely  upon  the 
adventure  of  life,  glad  that 

"The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things!" 

And  he  never  doubted  his  vocation.  As  he  wrote  to  his  friend 
Henley,  when  he  was  living  in  one  room  for  seventy  cents  a  day,  in 


39S  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

San  Francisco,  "There  is  something  in  mc  worth  saying,  though  I 
can't  find  out  what  it  is  yet." 

He  was  soon  to  find  out.  The  Treasure  Island  ran  through  the 
winter  months  of  1881-82  quietly  enough  in  the  pages  of  an  obscure 
magazine;  but  when  it  appeared  in  book  form,  next  year,  the  public 
began  to  discover  Stevenson.  The  reviews  pronounced  it  the  best 
story  since  Defoe.  "Statesmen  and  judges,"  says  Stevenson's 
biographer,  "became  boys  again  sitting  up  long  after  bedtime  to 
read  their  new  book."  It  was  published  sim.ultaneously  in  London 
and  Boston,  and  pirated  everywhere  else.  Within  two  years  it  had 
been  translated  even  into  Spanish  and  Greek.  But  neither  success 
nor  failure  could  check  Stevenson's  tremendous  industry.  His 
health  was  no  better.  The  greater  part  of  the  four  years  following 
his  return  from  America  he  was  forced  to  spend  in  exile  at  Davos 
Platz  or  in  the  Riviera.  Twice  he  was  near  death,  and  always  had 
to  live  "as  if  he  were  walking  on  eggs."  Yet  the  list  of  his  books 
written  between  1880  and  1886  numbers  over  sixty  titles.  One  of 
these  papers  won  instant  and  startling  success.  The  Strange  Case 
of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  published  in  1886,  established  his  rep- 
utation, and  still  is  probably  the  best  known  of  all  his  writings. 

Stevenson  wearied  of  attempts  to  "patch  up  his  carcase"  by 
repeated  flights  to  some  more  genial  climate.  After  a  residence  in 
the  south  of  England  for  two  years  which  resulted  only  in  steady 
decline  of  health,  he  resolved  to  try  at  least  a  year  in  America.  His 
writings  had  made  him  as  well  known  here  as  in  England,  and 
publishers  on  both  sides  the  Atlantic  were  clamorous  for  anything  he 
would  write.  InAugust  of  1887,  taking  his  wife  and  mother  with 
him — his  father  had  died  the  j-ear  before — he  sailed  for  Xew  York. 
The  next  winter  he  passed  in  a  health  resort  in  the  Adirondacks, 
while  his  wife  went  on  to  San  Francisco  to  arrange  for  an  extended 
sea  voyage  the  following  summer.  In  June,  1888,  the  Stevenson 
family  embarked  at  San  Francisco  on  a  seventy-ton  schooner  they 
had  chartered,  for  a  cruise  in  the  South  Pacific.  The  cruise  lasted 
three  years.  To  sail  thus,  month  after  month,  through  tropic  seas, 
from  one  strange  island  to  another,  over  that  unknown  side  of  the 
world,  made  life  for  Stevenson  one  long  romance — "better  than  any 
poem."  And  it  seemed  probable  that  here  if  anywhere  he  could 
hope  for  something  like  health.  He  decided  not  to  come  back  to 
civilization.  In  1891,  he  chose  a  hill-side  near  Apia  in  the  Samoan 
islands,  and  here  he  built  his  house.  He  cleared  a  space  of  virgin 
forest,  he  planted  his  garden,  and  after  long  wandering  felt  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  something  of  the  settled  peace  of  home. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  399 

There  were  three  years  left  him.  He  resumed  his  literary  work 
with  his  old  eagerness.  The  experiences  of  travel  furnished  him 
material  for  several  books  and  briefer  articles,  and  he  turned  again 
hopefully  to  the  field  of  fiction.  He  finished  David  Balfour — the  se- 
quel of  Kidnapped — and  he  began  what  promised  to  be  his  most 
ambitious  novel,  Weir  of  TIermiston.  But  in  fact  the  best  work  of 
his  life  had  been  done  before  he  left  England.  He  never  quite  re- 
gained the  vigor  or  the  magic  of  his  earlier  writing.  The  end  came, 
not  as  might  have  been  expected  after  a  period  of  decline,  but  as  he 
would  have  wished  it,  suddenly.  Elate,  full  of  enthusiasm,  at  the 
close  of  a  long  day's  work,  as  he  talked  with  his  wife  at  sundown,  he 
suddenl}^  threw  up  his  hands  to  his  head  exclaiming  "What's  that!" 
— and  never  spoke  again. 

Stevenson's  writings  are  our  best  modern  example  of  the  value 
of  the  literary  art.  He  had  naturally  the  quick  sense  of  phrase,  the 
inborn  gift  of  the  right  word;  and  he  had  cultivated  it  by  tireless 
and  exacting  practice.  His  writing  covers  a  very  wide  range  of 
subjects — fiction,  narratives  of  travel  and  adventure,  biography, 
literary  criticism,  personal  essays,  poetry;  but  an  art  so  finished 
touched  nothing  that  it  did  not  adorn.  His  page  is  never  dull  and 
lead-colored.  A  narrative  that,  written  by  another,  would  be  plod- 
ding common-place,  sparkles  with  unexpected  felicities  of  observa- 
tion, in  a  diction  remarkably  precise  yet  fresh  and  unstudied. 

Yet  art  alone,  however  perfect,  will  hardly  suffice  to  keep  any 
writing  from  oblivion.  It  is  probably  true  that  more  than  half  of 
Stevenson's  twenty-six  volumes  are  already  forgotten.  He  is  most 
often  thought  of  as  a  novelist.  His  novels — or,  to  speak  more 
accurately,  romances — have  the  one  great  virtue  of  action.  In  a 
time  when  the  public  began  to  weary  of  the  novel  of  society  with  its 
analysis  of  characters  not  worth  analyzing,  the  sort  of  novel  in 
which  nothing  happens  and  there  is  no  reason  why  anything  ever 
should  happen,  there  was  a  welcome  for  these  stirring  stories  where 
there  is  always  something  doing.  But  besides  this  sense  of  constant 
action,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  these  books  have  any  com- 
pelling interest.  They  are  not  studies  of  human  life  as  it  is.  They 
have  many  acute  and  truthful  statements  of  motive  and  mood,  but 
there  are  few  real  men  and  women  in  them.  They  do  not  add 
many  persons  to  our  acquaintance.  The  Treasure  Island  is  the  best 
of  them,  because  the  most  convincing.  It  appeals  irresistibly  to 
that  boy's  love  of  adventure  and  fight  which  no  man  with  any  blood 
in  him  ever  quite  outgrows.  The  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  will 
live  because  it  presents  one  of  the  fatal  possibilities  of  humaa 


400  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

naturtf  in  an  allegory  starUingly  vivid.  The  story  came  to  Steven- 
son, it  is  said,  in  a  dream;  it  has  the  uncanny  reality  of  a  night- 
mare. 

After  all,  the  most  interesting  person  in  all  Stevenson's  books  is 
Stevenson  himself.  His  character  was  unusually  rich  and  complex, 
combining  an  eager  enjoyment  of  all  pleasures  of  body  and  mind 
with  a  strong  ethical  sense,  and  driven  by  a  powerful  will.  Mr. 
Henley  in  the  closing  lines  of  his  familiar  memorial  sonnet,  at- 
tempts to  give  some  notion  of  the  opposite  characteristics  united 
in  his  friend: 

"Buffoon  and  poet,  lover  and  sensualist, 
A  deal  of  Ariel,  just  a  streak  of  Puck, 
Much  Antony,  of  Hamlet  most  of  all, 
And  something  of  the  Shorter  Catechist." 

Yet  these  lines  are  rather  brilliant  than  true.  Surely  there  was  little 
of  Antony  in  a  man  who  never  threw  the  reins  upon  the  neck  of  his 
passions;  of  Hamlet  there  was  certainly  much  less  in  that  adventur- 
ous spirit  who,  for  all  his  interest  in  the  mystery  of  life,  was  always 
athirst  for  action,  braved  the  assaults  of  outrageous  fortune  with  defi- 
ant laughter,  and  never  could  have  uttered  a  line  of  the  world-weary, 
melancholy  Dane.  Of  the  "Shorter  Catechist"  there  certainly  was 
something  in  Stevenson;  but  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  in  what 
proportions  that  dour  personage  could  combine  with  Marc  .\ntony 
and  Hamlet.  If  I  were  to  venture  a  suggestion  in  Henley's  manner, 
I  should  say  that  a  union  of  John  Knox  and  Robert  Burns  might 
make  a  character  not  unlike  that  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

In  the  opinion  of  many  readers,  the  personality  of  Stevenson 
finds  best  expression  in  the  Essays.  These  papers  are  his  philoso- 
phy of  life.  They  were  written  in  that  early  period  when  he  had 
conquered  his  first  fears  and  found  that  life,  in  spite  of  all  its  hard- 
ships, is  an  extremely  good  thing.  Nowhere  does  the  inner  force  of 
his  character  speak  more  boldly.  The  essays  are  iuU  of  his  exhilarat- 
ing, militant  optimism.  There  is  no  bravado  in  them;  their  courage 
is  not  the  ignorant  assurance  of  untried  youth.  He  does  not  blink 
any  of  the  manifold  ills  of  circumstance;  but  he  will  not  think  God's 
world  a  place  where  a  man  may  whimper  and  whine.  These  essays 
are  full  of  his  humor,  too.  Not  the  humor  of  the  satirist,  nor  of  the 
frivolous  man  who  deems  anything  in  life  may  be  matter  of  idle  jest; 
but  the  brave  and  helpful  humor  that  finds  men  and  women  always 
interesting,  and  often  issues  in  that  kindly  laughter  that  doeth  good 
like  a  medicine.     The  student  of  literature  delights  in  such  essays  as 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  401 

El  Dorado  and  Aes  Triplex  as  finished  specimens  of  his  art;  but  they 
are  more  than  that.  They  are  inspiring  studies  of  the  possibiHties 
of  life. 

El  Dorado 
El  Dorado :  the  name  of  the  reputed  king  of  a  fabled  city  of  great 
wealth  supposed  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  to  exist 
somewhere  in  South  America.  In  popular  usage  the  name  came  to 
be  transferred  to  the  city  itself,  and  is  used  as  typical  of  any  object 
of  imaginative  search. 

271,  22,  To  have  many  of  these  is  to  be  spiritually  rich:  an 
admirable  expression  of  the  wealth  of  Stevenson's  own  nature. 

272,  24.  Note-books  upon  Frederick  the  Great:  Thomas  Car- 
lyle's  last  great  historical  work,  finished  in  1865.  Called  here 
"note-books"  probably  because  of  their  multifarious  detail  imper- 
fectly wrought  into  a  flowing  narrative. 

272,  30.  Decline  and  Fall:  The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire;  most  important  historical  work  in  English  literature  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  by  Edward  Gibbon  (1737-1794).  It  was 
mostly  written  in  Lausanne.  Gibbon  says  in  his  Autobiography: 
"It  was  on  the  day,  or  rather  night,  of  the  27th  of  June,  1787. 
between  the  hours  of  eleven  and  twelve,  that  I  wrote  the  last  Hnes 
of  the  last  page,  in  a  summer  house  in  my  garden,  I  took  several 
turns  in  a  berccau  or  covered  walk  of  accacias,  which  commands  a 

prospect  of  the  country,  the  lake,  and  the  mountains I 

will  not  dissemble  the  first  emotions  of  joy  on  recovery  of  my 
freedom,  and  perhaps  the  establishment  of  my  fame.  But  my 
pride  was  soon  humbled,  and  a  sober  melancholy  was  spread  over 
my  mind  by  the  idea  that  I  had  taken  an  everlasting  leave  of  an  old 
and  agreeable  companion." 

273,  23.  Of  making  books  there  is  no  end:    Ecclesiastes, xii,  12. 

Walkiisig  Tours 

This  essay  should  be  compared  with  Hazlitt's  paper  On  Going  a 
Journey,  page  97  of  this  volume,  which  Stevenson  so  admired. 

276,  20.  Christian.  In  Bunyan's  Filgrim's  Progress,  when 
Christian  "came  up  with  the  Cross,  his  burden  loosed  from  off  his 
shoulders,  and  fell  from  off  his  back  .  .  .  then  Christian  gave 
three  leaps  for  joy  and  went  out  singing." 

276,  30.  Abudah's  chest.  The  story  of  Abudah  may  be  found  in 
Tales  of  the  Genii,  by  James  Ridley,  a  collection  of  stories  modeled 
on  the  Arabian  Nights. 


402  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

281,  14.  Says  Hazlitt.  See  the  passage  in  Hazlitt's  essay,  page 
104. 

281,  22.  Heine's  songs:  Heinrich  Heine  (i 797-1856),  German 
poet  and  critic.  His  Buch  der  Lieder  contains  many  exquisite 
specimens  of  German  lyric. 

281,  22.  Tristram  Shandy:  the  masterpiece  of  that  whimsical 
parson  and  novelist,  Laurence  Sterne  (1713-1768). 

282,  9.  Happy  thinking : 

"I  hae  been  blythe  wi'  comrades  dear; 
I  hae  been  merry  drinking; 
I  hae  been  joyfu'  gath'rin  gear; 
I  hae  been  happy  thinking." 

Burns,  "The  Rigs  0'  Barley. 

Aes  Trplex 

This  essay  was  first  printed  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine  for  Aprih 
1881,  and  afterwards  included,  like  the  other  essays  of  this  volume 
in  the  Virginihus  Piierisqiie.  It  represents  Stevenson's  literary 
style  at  his  very  best,  and  is  a  most  inspiring  expression  of  that 
valiant  cheerfulness  which  the  man  carried  through  all  his  life, 
though  always  in  the  shadow  of  death. 

Aes  triplex:  "Triple  brass."  The  phrase  comes  from  Horace, 
Odes,  Book  I,  5,  and  has  often  been  used  as  a  synonym  for  courage 
and  endurance. 

"Illi  robur  et  ses  triplex 
Circa  pectus  erat,  qui  fragilem  truci 
Commisit  pelago  ratem 
Primus." 

"Oak  and  brass  of  triple  fold 
Encompass'd  sure  that  heart 
Which  first  made  bold 
To  the  raging  sea  to  trust 
A  fragile  bark." 

283,  31.  Thug.  The  thugs  were  a  society  of  professed  assassins 
and  robbers  in  India  who  waylaid  and  strangled  travelers.  They 
were  suppressed  by  the  British  government  before  the  middle  of  the 
last  century. 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  403 

284,  II.  Dule  (or  dool)  tree :  in  Scotland  a  memorial  or  mourning 
tree. 

286,  I.  The  blue-peter  might  fly  at  the  truck.  The  blue-peter 
is  a  blue  flag  with  a  white  square  in  the  center  hoisted  at  the  mast 
head  as  a  signal  that  the  ship  is  ready  to  sail.  The  truck  is  a 
circular  block  at  the  top  of  a  mast,  with  holes  through  which  the 
halyards  are  passed. 

286,  27.  Balaclava:  a  small  town  in  the  Crimea,  the  scene  of  the 
famous  charge  of  the  English  "light  brigade,"  commemorated  in 
the  familiar  poem  by  Tennyson. 

286,  30.  Curtius.  According  to  the  Roman  legend,  an  earth- 
quake had  opened  a  great  chasm  in  the  Forum  which  the  sooth- 
sayers said  could  only  be  closed  by  throwing  into  it  the  most 
precious  thing  in  Rome.  Curtius,  a  noble  youth,  plunged  into  it, 
and  it  closed  over  him. 

287,  4.  The  Derby:  the  most  fashionable  of  the  English  races, 
held  at  Epsom  on  the  last  Wednesday  of  May.  It  is  the  great 
English  holiday  of  the  spring,  and  the  race  is  witnessed  by  thou- 
sands.    Called  after  the  earl  of  Derby,  who  established  it  in  1 780. 

287,  6.  Caligula:  Roman  emperor  (37-41  A.  D.).  His  savage 
cruelty  and  license  indicate  that  he  was  probably  insane.  The 
story  here  referred  to  is  told  by  the  Roman  historian  Tacitus. 

287,  15.  Praetorian.  The  pretorian  guard  was  the  body-guard 
of  the  Roman  emperors;  their  commanding  oflicer,  or  Prefect,  came 
to  be  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  dreaded  persons  in  the  state. 

288,  5.  Job  and  Omar  Khayyam  to  Thomas  Carlyle  or  "Walt 
Whitman:  all  of  whom  have  pondered,  though  in  very  different 
tempers,  the  meaning  of  life  and  the  mystery  of  death.  Omar 
Khayyam  was  a  Persian  poet  and  astronomer  of  the  first  part  of 
the  twelfth  century.  His  principal  work,  the  Rubaiyat,  familiar 
to  English  readers  from  the  paraphrase  made  by  Edward  Fitz- 
gerald, 1859,  may  be  described  as  a  poetic  expansion  of  the  motto, 
"Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die." 

Walt  Whitman  (i 819-1862),  robust,  out-of-door  .American  writer, 
to  whom  one  cannot  deny  the  title  of  poet,  though  he  had  no  eye  for 
what  most  people  think  beauty  and  no  ear  for  what  most  people 
think  poetic  form.  He  often  mistakes  bigness  for  greatness;  but 
there  are  many  high  and  solemn  things  in  his  work — and  many 
things  neither  high  nor  solemn.  Stevenson  himself  has  written, 
on  the  whole,  perhaps  the  most  just  appreciation  of  Whitman,  in 
the  volume  of  Familiar  Studies. 

288,  17.  Permanent  Possibility  of  Sensation.     This  phrase  was 


404  Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes 

used  by  John  Stuart  Mill  as  a  definition  of  Matter,  and  then,  slightly 
modified,  as  a  definition  of  Mind.  "The  Permanent  Possibility 
of  feeling,  which  forms  my  notion  of  myself."  See  Mill's  Examiua- 
tion  of  the  Philosophy  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Vol.  i,  chaps,  xi,  xii. 

289,  23.  The  Commander's  statue.  The  reference  is  to  the 
story  of  Don  Juan  as  given  in  Moliere's  play,  Dam  Juan  ou  le 
Fcstin  dc  Pierre.  The  libertine  Don  Juan  in  jest  invites  to  supper 
the  statue  of  the  Commander  who  was  the  father  of  one  of  his  vic- 
tims; the  statue  accepts  and  knocks  at  Don  Juan's  door;  and  the 
visit  later  results  in  the  death  of  the  seducer.  The  incident  is  often 
used  to  illustrate  the  imminence  of  some  une.xpected  calamity. 

290,  5.  A  mere  bag's  end,  as  the  French  say:  "Cul  de  sac." 
290,  17.  Our  respected   lexicographer:  Samuel   Johnson,   who 

all  his  life  admitted  that  he  dreaded  death.  Many  passages  may 
be  found  in  Boswell's  Life  like  the  following:  "I  told  him  that 
David  Hume  said  to  me,  he  was  no  more  uneasy  to  think  he  should 
not  be  after  this  life,  than  that  he  had  not  been  before  he  began  to 
exist."  Johnson:  "Sir,  if  he  really  thinks  so,  his  perceptions  are 
disturbed,  he  is  mad;  if  he  does  not  think  so,  he  lies."  .  .  .  "To 
my  question,  whether  we  might  not  fortify  out  minds  for  the  ap- 
proach of  death,  he  anwered,  in  a  passion,  'No,  Sir,  let  it  alone. 
.  .  .  A  man  knows  it  must  be  so  and  submits.  It  will  do  him  no 
good  to  whine.'"  BoswcU  Life  of  Johnson  (Hill's  Ed.)  Vol.  II,  p. 
106. 

290,  21.  Highland  tour:  made  in  1773,  when  Johnson  was 
sixty-seven  years  of  age. 

291,  29.  Mim-mouthed:  "Reserved  in  discourse";  implying 
affectation  of  modesty.     Century  Dictionary. 

292,  I.  A  peerage  or  Westminster  Abbey,  cried  Nelson :  Horatio 
Nelson,  England's  most  famous  naval  hero,  killed  in  the  moment  of 
victory  in  his  great  battle  of  Trafalgar.  The  famous  words  quoted 
here  were  uttered  three  years  earlier  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of 
Aboukir  Bay. 

292,  6.  Tread  down  the  nettle  danger.  See  Shakespeare 
Henry  IV,  Part  I,  Act  ii,  sc.  3. 

292,  g.  His  dictionary.  Johnson  set  at  work  upon  his  Dictionary 
in  1747,  an  obscure  and  struggling  author  in  London;  he  published 
it  in  1755. 

292,  14.  Thackeray  and  Dickens  .  .  .  fallen  in  mid-course. 
Thackeray  left  unfinished  Denis  Duval,  Dickens  left  unfinished 
The  Mystery  of  Edivin  Drood.  Stevengon  himself  had  begun  what 
promised  to  be  his  greatest  novel.  Weir  of  Hermiston,  when  death 


Biographical  Sketches  and  Notes  405 

met  him;  he  was  working  upon  it,  in  high  spirits,  all  through  the 
last  day  of  his  Hfe. 

293,  16.  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young.  Sec 'Pla.utus  Bacchides, 
Act  IV,  sc.  7. 

293,  24.  Trailing  with  him  clouds  of  glory:  from  Wordsworth's 
Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality,  a  favorite  poem  with  Stevenson. 

The  closing  lines  of  this  essay  seem  almost  prophetic  of  Steven- 
son's last  hour.  He  died  as  he  had  wished.  He  worked  in  cheerful 
spirits  through  the  day;  at  sunset  he  chatted  pleasantly  with  his 
wife;  at  eight  o'clock  he  had  gone. 

Queries  and  Suggestions 
El,  Dorado. 

1.  State  in  one  clear  proposition  the  subject  of  this  essay. 

2.  Suggest  some  other  examples  of  this  truth,  besides  those 
which  Stevenson  gives  in  the  essay. 

3.  In  what  ways  does  the  essay  seem  characteristic  of  Stevenson, 
and  illustrated  by  the  facts  of  his  life? 

Walking  Tours. 

1.  Compare  this  essay  with  Hazlitt's  On  Going  a  Journey;  what 
pleasures  do  both  men  find  in  walking? 

2,  Both  men  prefer  to  walk  alone;  but  what  are  the  reasons  for 
the  preference  in  each  case? 

3.  Do  you  think  the  after  dinner  mood  of  "happy  thinking" 
described  on  page  282  more  characteristic  of  Stevenson  or  of  Hazlitt? 

4,  Mention  any  other  points  of  similarity  or  of  contrast  between 
the  two  men  suggested  by  a  comparison  of  the  two  essays.  Which 
essay,  on  the  whole,  do  you  find  the  more  interesting?  And  why? 
Aes  Triplex. 

1.  Make  out  an  analysis  of  this  essay. 

2.  Show  by  an  examination  of  a  number  of  passages,  the  excel- 
lence of  paragraph  structure  in  the  essay. 

3.  Make  a  detailed  examination  of  a  passage  of  some  length — say 
the  second,  third,  and  fourth  paragraphs  of  the  essay — to  show  the 
imaginative  richness  of  Stevenson's  style,  in  metaphors,  allusions, 
epithets. 

4.  What  do  you  understand  to  be  the  distinction  Stevenson  makes 
in  this  essay  between  the  "love  of  life"  and  the  "love  of  living"? 

5.  What  circumstances  in  Stevenson's  earlier  years  make  this 
essay  especially  significant? 

6.  Write  a  brief  paper  Showing  that  Stevenson  is  at  his  best  in 
this  essay,  both  as  a  man  and  as  a  writer. 


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